Gravitation Cannot Be Held Responsible
by Talktidy
Summary: Captain Kirk meets a Vulcan, suffering from a strange affliction… Kirk pov - please note change of rating - Story now complete in 10 chapters
1. Chapter 1

**Gravitation Cannot Be Held Responsible**

**By Talktidy**

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A/N1: I would like to offer my sincere thanks to WildwingSuz, who took time out of a busy schedule to beta the first chapter for me, and whose invaluable feedback indicated a little revision was required to avoid a confusing opening and make the piece flow better.

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A/N2: At last this is now complete in ten chapters — I'm toying with adding an epilogue, but it's hardly necessary for the sake of the story — and I have to offer an apology for anyone who had been attempting to follow my little tale. The delay is part due to floundering about how to end this blasted thing, and part due to the state of my health.

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A/N3: One more and I shall get out of here. I just want to say that comments and feedback (or even someone hitting a favourite/alert button) make my day

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Disclaimer: would that these characters were mine. They most assuredly are not.

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_Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. _

_— Albert Einstein _

**PART I**

**Chapter 1**

He threw a left jab at the target, followed it up. One. Two. Three. Skipped backward and came in for a left, right combination. His heart had sunk as soon as he saw the communication: the unusual formality of the data packet, headed with a formal James T Kirk, graced with a mention of some of his more prominent honours. Starfleet had sent him orders to preside at a court martial of a fellow officer.

A virtuous sweat dripped off his brow. That should shut up McCoy's bellyaching about his widening girth.

He protested. _Enterprise_ was hip deep in a major refit and his girl needed him; those of his people not granted well deserved shore leave, were up to their eyeballs in work and his departure would place a heavier burden on his crew. All of which objections, and more, he relayed to Command, but Command would have none of it and shut him down. So he shuttle-hopped between systems, a journey spanning a ridiculous three days, until he made a tired and grumpy arrival at Deep Space Two, a paltry thirty plus light years away from his ship.

Thwump! The punching bag rocked in a satisfactory manner.

At least the workout served to blunt some of his anger at what had necessitated a court martial in the first place, a far more prosaic affair than his only other experience at Spock's court martial. He was not one to enjoy sitting in judgment of others, but at least the disgraced captain had had the thoughtfulness to make life easy for his peers. Verdict cut and dried for a captain first to sprint for the escape pods at the merest inkling of a warp core breach, the hell with the safety of his crew. How Starfleet psychological evaluations ever got it so wrong was a mystery. He resented the dishonoured captain almost as much for the disgrace to the uniform, as he did the man drawing him away from overseeing _Enterprise_'s repairs and refit at Starbase 39.

Now he was on his way home and travelling in style. _Gloriana's_ owners, extending every courtesy to Starfleet and eager for the cachet of a serving Starfleet captain aboard one of their vessels, offered him passage, but he would trade all of _Gloriana's_ considerable luxuries for an uncomfortable, fast ship in a heart beat.

Still, while aboard, he'd use the amenities. Luxury passenger vessels came with well appointed gyms and, his luck was in, a fifty metre swimming pool. Another ten minutes of this and he'd ease tired limbs with a few gentle laps.

Attention fully engaged in thumping the punching bag into submission, he did not realise he was no longer alone, until he finished with one final flurry of fists and spun away to head for the pool. He came to a dead stop.

Four Vulcan males had lain claim to an exercise mat set aside for wrestling, judo and sports in a similar vein. Their presence startled him because it was near to 0300 hours shiptime. He was still on _Enterprise_ time, a situation he saw no reason to correct, when he would transfer off _Gloriana_ the day after next at Andoria. What was their excuse? Really, what were they doing aboard? _Gloriana_'s ultimate destination, with minor diversions to pick up additional passengers, was the fleshpots of Raisa. Heading off to indulge in some fine dining and excellent room service? He snorted at the picture.

The sound attracted the attention of one of the Vulcans, who spared him the briefest of glances, before he trained his gaze back on his companions. If their presence aboard was a surprise, that they sparred with lirpas utterly astonished him. How did they manage to get those past ship's security? Practice lirpas perhaps. It seemed the bladed side was not edged, but even so, they could still do a lot of damage. Hard to believe even a Vulcan's best butter-wouldn't-melt demeanour would succeed in averting confiscation at embarkation.

One of the Vulcans eschewed an orderly warm-up routine, impatiently waiting for one of his fellows to engage him. A companion completed his own warm-up, took a couple of practice swings, and saluted the impatient Vulcan. He immediately retreated before an aggressive barrage of blows he only just met with his own weapon. The Vulcan, who had expressed a fleeting interest in his presence, now riveted all his attention on the pair trying to knock lumps out of each other, prowling a wandering perimeter out of range of a stray lirpa swipe. The aggressive Vulcan's technique betrayed him and he was beaten back. Whether the more defensively minded Vulcan let down his guard at this point, or he suffered a momentary distraction, was debatable. Not debatable was that he never saw coming the substantial whack to the midriff that knocked him on his ass.

The aggressive Vulcan raised his lirpa as if to bring it down hard upon his opponent's skull.

"Kroykah!" bellowed the group's referee.

The aggressive Vulcan stopped. He stared at the lirpa in his hands and looked around him as if not knowing where he was. The Vulcan's gaze fastened on the lirpa again and tracked upward, until it met with his own astonished stare. A hungry absence looked back at him.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose and a chill hand poured ice down his spine, vanquishing the heat of his workout. Emotions and half remembered impressions surged up out of his memories: an ochre tinged sky; the smell of an alien desert; mouth salty and metallic with his own blood; air choked from his lungs. A friend, subsumed beneath implacable drive, seeing only a competitor and intent on annihilating all challengers.

Pieces shifted and aligned in his mind. _Gloriana_'s ultimate destination might be Raisa, but on the way she would put in at a Rigellian colony, a relatively short hop from there to Vulcan.

_…stand with me…by tradition the male is accompanied by his closest friends._

Oh.

The Vulcans approached their friend warily, but the fight had gone out of him. The lirpa fell to the padded exercise mat with a muted thump; a second later he followed the lirpa's example and lay in an untidy heap beside the weapon, a shivering puddle of misery.

One of them swooped in with a medical tricorder. "He needs rest. Assist me to take him back to our quarters." He moved as if to scoop the stricken Vulcan into his arms, but he was pushed aside by the one who seemed to be the leader of the group, whose larger frame was more equal to the task. The Vulcan with the tricorder turned his attention to the defeated combatant, who at last had gingerly risen to his feet, but was waved away. The other might have been moving with a stiff care to nurse his bruises, but he still took the burden of the downed Vulcan off their leader in a wordless exchange, and headed for the exit. The Vulcan with the tricorder scuttled along in their wake.

The Vulcan who remained went about the business of gathering up the lirpas and putting them into carrying cases stacked against a bulkhead wall. He offered no acknowledgement of the near presence of another, no doubt waiting for this unfortunately nosey Terran to make himself scarce. Weapons packed away at last, the Vulcan bestowed a stony look upon him. He was used to that look. He strangled any mischief on his part to offer a greeting and detain the man, gave a polite, offhand nod, and went to change into swimming attire.

xxx

The following day at the same time, the punch bag suffered another pummelling at his hands and the Vulcans again trained at the mat. If he were honest, his workout was less intense because he was indulging his nosiness. Maybe the Vulcan, who was er… _unwell_ had managed some sleep, because he certainly seemed more rested and was altogether better behaved. The Vulcans detected his curiosity and not with appreciation. They closed in about their ailing friend, shielding him from the outsider's sight. Nothing to see here.

"May I help you?" said their leader, approaching him.

"I'm good."

The Vulcan parsed that sentence, looking confused.

A laugh bubbled up. "By which I mean I require no assistance."

"The workout mat has been reserved for this time. Everything is in order."

"I am sure it is."

"Then I cannot account for your interest in the activities of my friends and I." Translation: take that nose of yours and put it where the stars don't shine.

"I am always interested in other sparring styles, looking for any moves I can copy and place in my own repertoire."

A disdainful eyebrow assessed his form, found it wanting. After meeting Spock, it had come as a shock to discover not all Vulcans were the paragons that exposure to his first officer might make him expect them to be. Yet, there was more of a desire the Terran interloper should make himself scarce, than real intolerance and calculated insult in the other's appraisal.

"Also, depends if you're amenable to some assistance. Your friend is leaving himself open, when he feints to strike from his right. I just thought I would mention it. Sometimes it takes another eye to see."

The expression on the Vulcan's face was, if possible, even more forbidding.

A Starfleet officer knew better than this. He backed away and offered a polite nod. It really, really wasn't any of his business. What the hell was wrong with him? Just because he was bored, he couldn't impinge on the privacy of others, especially Vulcans. Pool, right. He laid in a course for the exit, still castigating himself, when all hell broke loose. The ailing Vulcan, spotting the stranger in their midst and presumably perceiving him as an enemy — scratch that, a rival, more likely — launched himself in a ferocious attack. In seconds, hands were around his throat.

A nasty case of déjà vu.

"Siran, no!"

"Kroykah!"

If anything, the bands of steel around his throat tightened and only released when his assailant succumbed to a neck pinch. His own knees hit the deck and he drew in a lungful of air, while he delicately probed his neck with his thumb and index finger. That would teach him to be inquisitive. Not too much damage, bruised and tender, but he was breathing without difficulty, though his respiration had escalated. Fight or flight. He concentrated on calming his body's outraged reflexes.

"Allow me." The Vulcan he presumed to be a healer fell to his knees, avoiding invading his privacy with touch as would a human physician, examining his throat by both eye and with the benefit of the medical tricorder. "The damage is not life threatening," he told the leader of the group of Vulcans, "but it is likely very sore." He looked at Kirk, as if registering the subject of his assessment should have a stake in the information, too. Some work needed on that bedside manner. "I regret I have not the equipment to treat your bruising." Was that worry that fleetingly showed on his face?

"Never mind," he said, pushing himself to his feet. "I'll live."

The Vulcan leader attempted some fast talking. "I apologise for my brother, sir. He is in need of medical treatment… and not quite himself." Disaster lay in the offing if this human were to press charges. If his brother were detained, he probably would never make it home in time. Hence panic, or as much as a Vulcan would ever allow of himself. "If you require recompense for this unfortunate affair, I am prepared to discuss terms with you."

"Never mind. My fault. Shouldn't have butted in. In his condition, who knows who he thought I was."

The Vulcan's face was scrupulously absent of emotion. Nevertheless, body language told its own tale of shock that this Terran might comprehend what ailed their companion and had the temerity, no matter how obliquely, to address what might be wrong. "Who are you?"

"James T Kirk of the USS _Enterprise_, at your service."

"Ah, Spock."

Kirk grinned. "My esteemed first officer."

"I am Tay," said the Vulcan, unbending enough to allow himself this. "I will take your advice about Siran letting his guard drop. I wish to keep my brother alive." Again the momentary birth and death of an expression and one of out-and-out fear, at that. Young and under a lot of stress, more than sufficient to erode control. It was difficult to estimate the ages of Vulcans, but on closer acquaintance he thought Tay much younger than Spock, and in Vulcan terms Spock was still barely into adulthood. Yet Tay indisputably led the little group, which prompted him to wonder at the ages of his companions.

Had other female bondmates taken a leaf out of T'Pring's book? Or was this hoo-ha all about young Vulcans working themselves into a lather over the big bad wolf of pon farr. Then again remembering his own experiences at Spock's wedding, maybe it did indeed warrant outright fear and revulsion.

"You suspect your brother's bondmate will challenge?"

Tay shifted posture. Affront warred with a desire to unburden himself to someone. Affront took a hike. "The number of challenges have increased of late."

That was a yes on T'Pring copycats, then.

"Should T'Kar forsake my brother and challenge, I do not know that he has either the skill or the desire to survive. Your immediate experience to the contrary, my brother is a gentle creature, who would harm no one," and added, as if it sealed the deal. "He is studying to be a mathematician."

"I am not sure this is the reassurance you seek, but I know of another Vulcan, normally gentle of temperament, who changed on the challenging grounds."

"Is it true that Spock talked while in the plak-tow?"

He hesitated. This was not his business to recount, no matter that he had been there.

"Forgive me, that was intrusive and impolite. I have no right to invade another's privacy."

"Perhaps I might trade you in the intrusiveness and impoliteness stakes. Are you not married yourself?"

"No."

"Oh, I thought your brother was the younger?"

"He is." At his evident surprise, he added, "These matters do not follow a strict timetable." As if remembering he was speaking to an offworlder and regretting the impulse to confide in a stranger, he drew back into a carapace of Vulcan rectitude. "I must check Siran is well."

He scuttled away before hearing any response to his farewell.

xxx


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Kirk woke to the sound of a persistent ping, disoriented at the unfamiliar sound until he roused into the land of the living and realised it was the ship's communications system demanding his attention. He flicked the comm switch and sought out the time shown on the communications panel. Just after oh seven hundred hours.

"Kirk here."

"This is Colclough, Captain Kirk."

"What can I do for you, Captain?" The two of them danced around each other in exquisite politeness. On arrival he'd been so exhausted, he'd barely had energy for politeness and Colclough had taken it amiss. Now it was 'Captain' and 'sir' at every juncture.

"I am afraid I have bad news, sir. _Gloriana_ is diverting to Port Cochrane."

"That is taking me out of my way, Captain." What the hell? Now wide awake, he quelled mounting impatience. "Why Cochrane Point?" although he could probably guess. Also Port Cochrane, indeed. Laughable to distinguish the tiny station with the designation of Port. Any Starfleet captain obliged to put in there was having an exceedingly bad day. More like glorified trading post, offering the sort of tat tourists would find exotic and presumably desirable; its main rationale for existence was that it operated as a transfer point for civilian transports, particularly passenger vessels.

Colclough uhmmed and ahhed, but at last confessed it was a commercial decision. They would take on extra passengers there. No doubt the fine print on flight bookings covered such course diversions. At the moment even an uncomfortable, _slow_ shuttle held some appeal.

"I would like to send a sub-space communication to _Enterprise_, Captain Colclough, to advise them of the delay." And get Starfleet to send a ship and get him off this damn vessel before he died of frustration and boredom. He had a starship in mid refit he needed to oversee, dammit.

"Certainly, Captain Kirk, it is the least we can do." Colclough's voice was pregnant with relief that his august guest had not unloaded the expected opprobrium on him. The august guest could have, but he doubted the change of course was Colclough's idea. "Please standby while I transfer you to my comms officer. Colclough out."

"Captain Kirk, this is Harris. Please standby while I hail _Enterprise_, sir." Old habits die hard. From the formality of manner in which Harris addressed him, he suspected the greyed communications officer was retired Starfleet and determined to flaunt her efficiency, an efficiency of which he was an appreciative beneficiary; she must have anticipated his request, because it was only scant moments before he was speaking to Uhura.

"Spock on the bridge, Uhura?"

"Present, Captain."

"How's my refit coming along?"

"On schedule, sir."

"I don't know whether you've heard, but the _Gloriana_ is diverting to Cochrane Point."

"Indeed? That will delay your arrival at Andoria by a considerable margin."

"Tell me about it! Spock, if I spend another hour aboard this ship, I am going to lose my mind. _Enterprise_ is being refitted and I want to be around to see it in progress. Understand, it's not that I don't trust my crew—"

"Jim," Spock said, interrupting his whining, "I can arrange for a long distance shuttle out of Starbase 24 to dock with _Gloriana_ within approximately twelve to fourteen hours. I regret I cannot be more precise on an ETA at this time."

"I can live with twelve to fourteen. I can sleep through most of that. I think. I hate being a passenger, Spock." It alarmed him that that last bit came out almost as a wail.

"Understood, Captain. Spock out."

Since there was little else for him to do, he burrowed back under the covers and did his best to catch up on his sleep. He would be glad of it once he arrived home. Refits could be a fraught affair, even with an exemplary crew. He blanked his mind and, and perhaps because he knew he would soon be leaving, sleep claimed him quickly.

xxx

Another chime drew him out of a confused dream, where all his efforts to return home met with hurdle after hurdle. He squinted at the clock. Ten hundred hours on the nose.

He hit the comm panel switch. "Kirk here." No response. He flicked the switch again. "Kirk here." Sluggish synapses finally fired and he threw off his bedcovers and headed for the door. The thing about sleeping as much as this, it left him muggy and sluggish when he woke up.

"Captain Kirk, this is Tay," said a tentative voice, when he answered his door chime.

"Who?"

"Siran's brother."

Ah, Tay and his merry little band of Vulcans. He gave himself the once over, checking his attire, or more probably a lack of it, wouldn't outrage the delicate sensibilities of a guest, opened the door and waved his visitor inside. "What can I do for you?"

"My brother is in what Captain Colclough calls the brig," and, in case he needed further elucidation, added, "he is under arrest."

Brig? A brig? What the hell sort of outfit was that man running? Starfleet wannabe!

His new friend had a bad case of the fidgets. The boy looked down at his hands, the worst culprits, and attempted to quell his agitation with a formal pose of hands behind back, back ramrod straight.

"Captain, I beg you to intercede with Captain Colclough on my brother's behalf. Any remuneration you may wish for your service, my family will undertake."

That gave him pause, until he realised it was only a cry for help, not an offer of a bribe. He forsook telling Tay to calm down; no need to add insult to injury, even though Tay was betraying his youth with his distress. A human counterpart would be in tears.

"Alright, let me ask the obvious: why is your brother under arrest?"

"Captain Colclough accuses my brother of attempting to steal his ship."

xxx

Strange to think of decor and brig in the same context, but _Gloriana_'s version came with startlingly white walls and bright lighting that hurt Kirk's eyes.

Siran lay on a cot in the brig's cell. At least he presumed it was the boy. A medic tended to him and blocked most of his view. Colclough had ordered the forcefield barrier raised, which seemed a little excessive under the circumstances.

"We had to stun him with a phaser," Captain Colclough said, underlining the thought. "That is Doctor Briscoe examining him." Medical prying. Not a development to make Tay any less restive.

"That," Tay said, agreeing with his assessment, "is not required. My cousin is a healer; he will treat my brother for his injuries." Tay's entreaty fell on deaf ears; a dyspeptic Captain Colclough, a man normally given to an excess of bonhomie, bestowed a glare that went someway beyond brusque and dallied with outright incivility. It was just as well an intercom hail drew him away.

On reflection showing up in Starfleet gold might not have been the most politic decision. The uniform obliged _Gloriana_'s captain to hear him out, but Colclough didn't have to like it, nor did he have to conceal his distaste for the manipulation. A lot of the man's resentment probably still stemmed from their ill starred introduction and now his rude and uppity guest was taking it upon himself to stick his nose into _Gloriana_'s business.

If Colclough were prepared to hear him out, he could offer the observation that a general aptitude for the sticking in of one's nose might be regarded as the raison d'être of a starship captain. Many an adventurer, who took it upon themselves to try the Federation's toleration for their brand of mischief, could attest to Starfleet officers' untimely inquisitiveness.

Colclough finished his call, but made no attempt to engage either of them, instead clasping his hands behind his back and focusing his attention on Briscoe and his prisoner. No point trying to placate the captain at this point in the trajectory of his annoyance, better to let him simmer down a little.

In lieu of fascinating conversation, he turned his own attention to examining the brig. The smell that sanitisers could not scrub out of surfaces he identified as a faint, but pervading, smell of vomit. So, less a brig and more a drunk tank; in which case the two sets of personal restraints mounted on the wall were a little excessive for so pedestrian a use. Drunk tank or not, though, the docking port that seemingly formed an integral part of the brig made him scratch his head. No starship captain would tolerate such an obvious security breach.

"My cousin is a healer, he will treat my brother for his injuries."

Colclough's head snapped round and he speared Tay with a glare. "I am not hard of hearing, sir.!"

"Tay has asked me to lend assistance, where I can, Captain."

Which chipped further away at Colclough's patience. His brow lowered. "And I must ask what's this to do with you, sir?" he snapped.

"I do have some experience with Vulcans."

Colclough would know the identity of his first officer. The other captain's gaze went to the livid marks about his throat, but he said nothing. He had not really believed the story of an over enthusiastic wrestling bout.

"Do you really want to keep that boy cooped up in here? It's possible that Siran's family may be well placed on Vulcan." Tay's eyebrows lifted at this, proving it to be the over statement he had suspected, but, small mercies, his new friend offered no correction. "In which case, you might find yourself at the centre of a diplomatic incident." He left Colclough to mull that over. Judging by the way the man's jaw tightened and worked, it was a complication he had not considered.

"Then let them. The matter can be adjudicated in the Federation courts, when we put in at our final destination, Raisa."

Oh, sweet—

Unfortunately Tay was not done. "Captain, I demand my cousin be allowed to examine Siran." Colclough bristled at so peremptory a demand. So much for the diplomatic approach. Where was a gag, when he needed one?

He sent Tay a quelling look. "Excuse my Vulcan friend; he is concerned for his brother."

Colclough drew himself up in all his portly glory. "I'm not in the habit of mistreating my passengers, Captain, no matter the provocation, and there was plenty of provocation to go around, believe me. That man," Colclough levelled an admonishing finger — _j'accuse!_ — at the motionless figure on the cot, "assaulted two of my crew — one of them has a broken arm." Colclough's glower intensified. "That man battered down the door to the flight deck with a Vulcan cudgel—"

"Lirpa."

Not helping, Tay.

Colclough drew an aggrieved breath. "That man demanded my people change course for Vulcan at the point of said weapon, whereupon the flight deck crew signalled a security emergency. Security arrived. The Vulcan would not desist and promptly attacked when he was told to stand down. At which point in proceedings he was stunned and brought here. I immediately called Doctor Briscoe to provide medical attention." Colclough seeking somewhere to bestow a glower that, with the telling of his tale, darkened into a deeper shading of righteous offence, laid the full force of it on his fellow captain. He restrained himself from an _it wasn't me_. If venting helped Colclough, then it was all to the good, far, far better to offer up the sympathetic ear. "Although, why the urgency to return to Vulcan beats me."

He would not enlighten him. Siran's attempt to turn a ship around bore far less success than another endeavour in the same vein he could think of. The liner's controls were pretty foolproof, but did Siran even know how to pilot a ship, any ship?

Tay, at last, taking a leaf from his book, laid off the demands. "Captain, I apologise on behalf of my brother. I assure you this is not his normal behaviour. My family will make all necessary reparations to your company and to the members of your crew, who have been injured. He is not well and treatment for his condition requires his prompt relocation to Vulcan."

"Doctor Briscoe is a more than capable medical professional." Colclough turned that glower in Tay's direction. "If that was supposed to be an appeal for me to change course, I'm not interested.

Tay frowned, as if wracking his brains for an apt response. "Please?"

He smothered an urge to laugh, which would probably push Colclough over the top, and turned the sympathy and understanding up to max again; he drew Colclough to one side. "Captain, do you really want to keep that sick boy a prisoner?"

"Kirk," _Gloriana_'s captain finally ditched the honorific. "Are you seriously about to advocate I release someone who attacked my crew without provocation?" Colclough, his ire still raw, and suspecting he was about to be persuaded to a course of action he did not care for, was not disposed to let him get a toehold in the conversation.

"Well, if you put it like that, Captain. I would think this facility a safe place for Siran, until you drop him off at Vulcan."

Colclough goggled at him, not sure whether to be astonished or offended.

Who said diplomacy was the art of letting someone else have your way? "I am sympathetic to the aggravation and, as a fellow captain," careful, that was laying it on a little thick, "I well understand your outrage for the safety and well being of your crew. But a Vulcan on a berserk rampage? We both know there's something wrong with that picture, sir. I don't have to tell you how out of character such behaviour is for them. They embrace non-violence; for them it is not empty posturing."

"I would never have thought it possible, but that's the thing about Vulcans, one should never forget they are actually a warlike race. I suppose any Vulcan must have his breaking point," Colclough muttered in an aside that Kirk was not sure was intended for him. The captain drew in a considering, judicial breath. "I'm still thinking the Federation courts on Raisa are best equipped to sort out this mess." To get an aggravating headache off his hands, he meant.

Sort out? Was the man really that naïve? Or was he kidding himself. The latter probably. This was just the opening he needed. Make Colclough recognise that bombast would result in the worst of all possible worlds, the pitfalls of indulging his ill-temper. He would also need to provide Colclough with an out that saved face.

"Well, you're a braver man than I for considering involving Federation investigators. What little dealings I have ever had with them myself left the impression that they work to their own timetable, the priorities of busy captains be damned."

Colclough squirmed. His jaw worked some more, but he swallowed whatever he wanted to say, no doubt because it would uncork the threatened eruption. "You are proposing I reward bad, no make that criminal, behaviour with a detour to Vulcan?"

"Believe me, Captain, if Siran were aware of what he had done it would occasion a very un-Vulcan sort of embarrassment," Kirk said, ignoring Tay, standing in his line of sight and giving him the Vulcan equivalent of the evil eye for that. "Consider, sir, that it does indeed seem that Siran has diminished responsibility for his actions as a result of illness, and that there is an offer on the table for restitution of damages. It's my experience when Vulcans say something they mean it."

Colclough huffed.

He was on a roll. "I think it would also be prudent to consider what should happen if you were to lose the boy."

Colclough looked around blankly at the brig, as if to discover a hiding place.

"If he were to die." The addition of the bald clarification made Colclough shrink from him, a reaction that gladdened his own heart. "It's my experience that Vulcans are seldom ill, but if they should succumb to illness, it may be life threatening." Tay flinched, and well he might. The only time Spock had taken ill, with the same thing that now afflicted Siran, he'd nearly died. "Vulcans revere life. With their limited birth rate, they are particularly touchy about the safety of members of their race. If Siran's illness were to take an unfortunate turn, it is not beyond the bounds of reason that even the Vulcan High Council might take an interest and, if this were to occur, I imagine you and your company would be obliged to field question after question." Tay's eyebrows pursued his hairline again, but he ignored the unspoken editorial. Not exactly a lie. "Lots and lots of questions. Vulcan might even be denied to you as a port of call, if the answers received were perceived to be unsatisfactory. Believe me you don't want to mess with bloody-minded Vulcans, they can really take the fun out of life."

Colclough huffed. Huffed and puffed. Kirk let out a surreptitious hiss of his own breath. A done deal. Now that Colclough had got most of his ire off his chest, the price of escalating the situation made him balk at what it would cost in time and personnel resources.

"Alright, Kirk, I'm listening."

Yes, he was. He offered _Gloriana_'s captain his most judicious expression. "Under your authority as captain of this vessel, you could divert to Vulcan for the sake of a medical emergency. The bean counters at your company's headquarters might gnash their teeth, but a medical emergency always trumps profit margins, and, said Kirk, aware he was going for the clincher, "you would have the sworn testimony of _Enterprise_'s captain to back you up."

"Still listening."

"What's the maximum warp speed that _Gloriana_ can muster?"

"Warp five."

"Then you would get him off your hands within ten hours."

Tempting prospect. "The errand of mercy angle. Probably stop a lot of whining from the passengers in its tracks, too." Colclough was sold.

"Without a doubt, Captain."

"If you two gentleman have quite finished," said Doctor Briscoe, interrupting their little détente, "you might want to consider a hitch to your plans."

"What hitch, Doctor Briscoe?" Colclough asked.

"That I am herewith placing _Gloriana_ in quarantine."

xxx

Author's Note

I may inform Captain Kirk the person who said, "Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way." – is attributed to Sir David Frost


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"What?" Kirk said.

"What?" Colclough said.

Tay made no response, but his shoulders sagged as if he were shouldering a great burden.

Briscoe, thoroughly put out with events, approached the barrier and signalled for his release. Indeed, with his attention devoted to Colclough and Tay, he had almost forgotten the doctor's presence.

"My patient" — well, kudos to the doctor for not saying prisoner — "is suffering from some illness, the like of which I have never before seen. Until I can determine what it is and whether it is a contagious infection, I consider it prudent he be kept in isolation. Since he has been aboard for the last four days, who knows who has been exposed to this condition, hence the requirement for quarantine."

So near, so far. "Doctor, do you not think quarantine a little excessive?" he asked, with scant hope of agreement. Aside from the danger to Siran, the thought of being stranded on this vessel, for who knew how long, made his blood run cold.

"I was not aware that, amongst their other accomplishments, starship captains held medical degrees, too."

"Briscoe!" Colclough said.

"I am serious, Captain."

"My brother is not contagious."

Briscoe eyed Tay. "Indeed? Are you a doctor, sir?"

"I am not a healer. I am Vulcan. My brother is Vulcan. The," Tay cast around for the correct word, "treatment he requires is on Vulcan."

Briscoe speared Tay with a look. "What is he suffering from, then?"

"His condition affects only Vulcans," Tay said, sidestepping the question.

"So?" Briscoe said, unmoved. "We are bound for Port Cochrane. I was astonished, really quite astonished to discover the number of Rigellian ships that call in there in the space of a few days. You are aware of the similarity between Rigellian and Vulcan physiology, are you not?"

Tay blanked his features and said nothing.

"Gentlemen," said Briscoe, "unless I can determine what his illness is, he's not going anywhere, not where the safety of the ship and even the people at the ship's next port of call and beyond are concerned." Briscoe appealed to Colclough directly. "Captain Kirk has let you hear what you want to hear. Do you want to know what's on the other side of that coin, Captain Colclough?"

"Not especially", Colclough muttered in an undertone.

Briscoe had no intention of sparing him. "If you were contemplating over-ruling me, Captain, then I would urge you remember the good ship _Tethys_. That snagged Colclough's attention in a hurry, as well it might. Seventy years later her notoriety lived on. Such a small ship to spread infection across a thirty light year arc of space. Fifteen million died; one colony world virtually wiped out and had to be reseeded from scratch. When she was finally apprehended, no living creature remained aboard. The ship and her late lamented crew ended their days towed into the cleansing fires of the nearest star to where she was found.

He had seen that look on his CMO's face, too, and his heart sank. Of course, McCoy would never budge where the spectre of a medical disaster might lay in the offing, nor would he expect anything different. McCoy, however, would not exult in the opportunity to throw his weight around as Briscoe was now doing. Colclough gave his fellow captain a beset look. He sympathised. He loathed bullies on principal. No recourse at this point other than to keep his mouth shut, though. What was personal convenience when compared to the potential for the spread of pestilence?

Tay turned a speculative eye over Siran's cell and the close quarters of the brig, as though measuring the limits of the brig's containment. Hemming Vulcans into a corner — that never ended well. Visions of jail breaks or resorts to more drastic solutions populated his imagination; the last thing he needed was a surplus of Vulcan initiative.

"Tay," he said, to draw the Vulcan's attention to him. He leant in and dropped his voice. "I think I have the means to allay Doctor Briscoe's concerns about an infection."

Tay attempted to maintain a proper Vulcan detachment, amid the boy's precarious control. To allow Tay to get it together, he did the only thing he thought polite, and ignored the emotional déshabille before him in favour of a close study of the deck plating, which apparently offered a source of much fascination. Even so, Tay had drawn back a step, so utterly appalled at the prospect of what the doctor would likely have to be made party to, it required an added hasty, "I will keep what's required to the bare minimum. But if I get Briscoe to see reason, is there a way your family can send a vessel to rendezvous with _Gloriana_?"

"Captain, my family are not as eminent as Commander Spock's, nor do they have such resources at their disposal." A discreet eye cast over Tay's clothing, which one might suppose to be his best, and thereby employed to impress Captain Colclough with an impression of stolid reliability, proved to be nothing more than clean, but well used attire. Such an assessment made him wonder if Tay's offer of reparations might seriously dent the family assets for decades to come.

Tay gazed at him, all expression now scrupulously wiped clean. "We were headed for Praahk," the name threw him, until he placed it as the Vulcan name for a Rigellian colony, "where we would make a connection for Vulcan, but with the liner's diversion, that connection has been missed. The original flight plan would have brought us to Vulcan the day after next."

The absence in Siran's eyes amounted to a harbinger of an imminent descent into the plak-tow. Tay's timetable, however much it was now shot to hell, offered a disquieting impression that they had been cutting it a bit fine. Tay returned to his scrutiny of the brig; his gaze flicked over Colclough and Briscoe. Measuring the odds? Please, no. Tay's family having no resources of their own to call upon complicated matters. A fast Starfleet shuttle headed his way, but he didn't think Starfleet would take kindly to him re-purposing her mission. There was also a less generous desire on his part that he wanted to return to _Enterprise_. In any case, a starship captain's authority extended only so far. Yes, he could play the errand of mercy angle he'd recommended to Colclough, but it would necessitate justifying the detour with a disclosure of more information than Tay, or any Vulcan, would care for. Better the low key approach.

"Okay," he said in the briskest of tones. "Plan B it is then."

Time for _Gloriana_'s communications officer to strut more of her stuff.

xxx

Kirk opted to take the second of his two calls, this one to Gerry Kerrigan, in the privacy of his quarters.

"Jim Kirk, as I live and breathe. I nearly fell over, when I saw your call id. You traded in _Enterprise_ for the lap of luxury, then?"

He shuddered. "Don't even go there, Gerry."

Gerry laughed. "How the hell are you?"

"In need of a favour."

Gerry's voice turned dry. "I owe you several, as I recall."

"Not keeping count, here."

"You should. A girl could take advantage."

"I need a ride — and, no, that's not supposed to be a double-entendre — I have some friends who need to get to Vulcan in a hurry."

"What constitutes hurry?"

"As in yesterday. I'm desperate, Gerry. I'll take a garbage scow as long as it's fast."

"Oh hell, Jim, my people are light years away. I'm the only one close. I'm crewing the _Isolde_ back to homeport. In fact, I'm really close to where that fat liner of yours is hogging all the room in the shipping lanes, but the _Isolde_ is not exactly an appropriate choice just right now."

He searched his memory for the vessels that formed Gerry's fleet. _Isolde_ was a small courier. Too small for the power demands of a transporter, but otherwise very fast. Gerry typically used her to ship either people or expensive high-end cargo items that had to be somewhere in a hurry. Promising.

"Define what is not exactly an appropriate choice."

Gerry let out a huffy breath. "Oh, you'll love this. My last job was to ship a Tellarite's pedigree livestock from Tellar Prime to Tellar Secundus. Don't ask me how, I've not ruled out mischief from my competitors looking for fun at my expense, but their shipping crates opened in transit and they escaped; docile, gentle things, so that wasn't really a problem. The issue was that space travel did not agree with them; it caused them to gush from both ends. My client was unhappy his animals arrived in port seriously dehydrated and made life difficult, hell, next to impossible, for me to bring in a clean-up crew. In the end, breaking orbit and leaving for our homeport seemed like the simplest solution. I'm not kidding, Jim. The _Isolde_ is ankle deep in sh—, in manure. Think that any place for Vulcans?"

"I'll take it, Gerry. My Vulcan friends may never smell another thing, but beggars can't be choosers."

Gerry sounded dubious. "I'm not so sure about this. It doesn't present a good image of my fleet."

"Believe me, they'll have other things on their mind. Anyway it won't hurt them to breathe through their mouths for the nine hour stretch to Vulcan."

"Seven," she corrected with an automatic pride for her ship. "Very well, Captain Kirk, I am altering course to rendezvous with _Gloriana_. Will you inform her captain to expect me, sir."

"Will do, Captain. ETA?"

"Three and a half hours. Shade under, probably. See you then, Jim. _Isolde_ out."

xxx

In his cabin, Kirk packed his few items of gear ready for his own departure, and listened with one ear to a news broadcast of the latest developments on Vulcan. All rather depressing, the anti-Federation isolationists were gaining traction and besieging T'Pau's power base. If this was now news for general consumption, he'd bet T'Pau's political clout had taken a harder wallop than generally known. Not much of a bet, his position in Starfleet granted him access to more intelligence than the average Federation citizen.

The door pinged for his attention. He answered it, thinking it would be Tay. "Doctor Briscoe."

Unbidden, the doctor invited himself inside. "I thought you would be pleased to hear I have lifted the quarantine."

"Thank you, Doctor Briscoe, but I was already aware of that," he said, and went back to his task.

"You know, I do deplore captains taking it upon themselves to involve themselves in medical decisions." A grin flickered into being. "Even if they are right."

"It is Doctor McCoy who is right, sir, as I am sure perusal of his report proved." He paused in his packing. "You did receive Doctor McCoy's report?"

Briscoe fidgeted. "I have. What little there was of it."

"But quite sufficient, I understand, for you to confirm that what is going on with Siran is not an infectious process and he is no danger to others." He narrowed his eyes at his visitor. Something was off. Briscoe offered the complaint about overstepping professional boundaries in the guise of friendly raillery, but the tension in his shoulders and the set of his jaw bespoke a real annoyance. Why would Briscoe think him uninformed of the lifting of the quarantine? Answer: he had been under no such misapprehension — he wanted something. Doctor Sweetness and Light gave him another friendly grin, whose brittleness betrayed he seethed inside, and that clinched it.

The Briscoe smile congealed, before the man wrestled it back into shape. "That boy may not be infectious, Captain Kirk, but I don't agree he's not a danger to others. I had two of our crew to patch up to prove otherwise. I've told Colclough he should keep him penned in the brig, until he's ready to leave." He stared back, expecting disagreement, and was surprised when all he received was a comment his recommendation was probably a good idea.

"The ship coming to collect Siran and the others can attach to the brig's docking port. My young friends should be off _Gloriana's_ hands within the next hour." He spared a gloomy eye for the crushed and sorry state of his dress uniform. "I hear Siran has stopped throwing himself at the brig's force field."

"Yes, he's quieted down. His brother is in there with him and his presence seems to have calmed him."

Or perhaps Tay had informed Siran of the pending arrival of Gerry's ship.

"Sex."

He paused in his attempt to smooth out creases in his tunic. "Thank you, but you're not my type."

Briscoe ignored the quip. "It has to do with reproduction, doesn't it? I've not had much time, but enough to perform some tests of my own, the results of which are startling. It would make a fascinating topic for a scientific paper."

One that might very possibly make his name. That he had presented himself in person to pass on the news about releasing the ship from quarantine suddenly made a deal more sense. If he were to guess, Briscoe had received no help from Tay and Siran, so he was about to appeal to the person, who had secured Siran's deliverance. His Vulcan first officer was famous. Did Briscoe see him as the Vulcan whisperer, the purveyor of Vulcan secrets?

The hell with that.

Just as well, then, Briscoe was absolutely no good at this. He summoned up his twelve year old self and smirked, cranking the dial all the way into obnoxious. "Sex? If you are going to ask _Gloriana's_ Vulcan guests all they can tell you about the birds and the bees, can I watch?"

Briscoe failed to conceal a glower.

"Maybe they can offer an opinion on: if love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?" He waggled his eyebrows at his unwanted guest. "Or, as a man of science, you might prefer: gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love."

"Captain Kirk, I—"

"I'd prefer you stuck to lingerie, though. Indeed, maybe you could ask them if they have a particular taste in lingerie?"

"Kirk—"

"It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all."

"Kirk, I came to ask for your assistance. I need a blood sample."

"You'll have to clear that with Doctor McCoy. I don't think he approves of other doctors trying to muscle in on his patients, particularly, when they're Starfleet."

Briscoe blinked. "What? No, I don't mean you. Why would I need your blood? Kirk, those Vulcans listen to you. Now, they owe you."

Whoa, bad, bad answer. Nothing would persuade him that any one deserved to be subjected to treatment as if they were no more than a bug, with an eviscerating scalpel poised to do its worst, nor would he have any truck with the notion of a debt incurred for his troubles.

"People say you can't live without love, but I think oxygen is more important." He continued in a similar vein, a stream of smart ass quips, mindless small talk, puerile humour. Not that Briscoe heeded such an impediment to his purpose, manfully swallowing his annoyance and attempting to deflect the conversation into a more serious tone. He took that as an ominous warning of Briscoe's desire to pursue his investigation; any less determined an individual would have left his company long since. He should warn Tay.

His gear neatly stacked, he made a show of looking at it in a none too subtle hint, until a silence stretched between them and became awkward. Briscoe grudgingly took his leave, no longer able to ignore that he'd outstayed his welcome.

xxx

Kirk covered his surprise at how fine Captain Colclough cut his arrival at the brig, appearing just as Gerry began her final approach to dock with _Gloriana_. The liner's captain seemed untroubled his Starfleet guest was now de facto running this dog and pony show, with not a peep out of him over Kirk engaging Kerrigan's services. In fact, Colclough was back to extending his Starfleet guest all courtesies, ecstatic to have this headache in the guise of troublesome Vulcans off his hands. Briscoe was absent, for which he offered up grateful thanks and he was pretty sure Colclough matched the sentiment. The doctor had the mien of a man thinking maybe he should reconsider his position, no matter that McCoy had provided all necessary data to disprove an infection.

The force field barrier was down. A meek and disorientated Siran stood next to his brother; the other Vulcans kept close order, as if to blockade further interference. Briscoe must have been at them again.

Colclough sent him a curious stare. "Is something bothering you, Captain Kirk?"

"That docking port." Not a lie. It so had. Bless the vagaries of ship design. "Why place it here? It offers the possibility of a security breach."

_Gloriana's_ captain tried to contain amusement, failed. "This is not Starfleet, Captain. That port was part of the ship's original design and this facility added afterwards. It was intended for the odd rowdy passenger, who partook of a little too much liquid cheer, and made themselves a nuisance to my other passengers. I am not sure a drunk passenger would have friends with the requisite resources to spring him from detention. An access port is a moot consideration, I find. At least I thought so until today; I never anticipated its use for this."

The captain might have continued, but _Isolde's_ docking clamps mated with the _Gloriana's_ brig port, established a hard seal and the airlocks opened into _Isolde's_ deck.

Beside him the Vulcan's recoiled as one.

No, the air hadn't actually turned a shade of puce, just his imagination at work. That was … unexpectedly pungent.

"Shit!" Colclough gagged and looked like he would prefer to stop breathing.

"Yep," Kirk said, "that'll make your eyes water, alright."

Gerry appeared from the dim interior of her ship. "Next stop, Vulcan." She grinned at Kirk, but mindful of her manners, addressed her next words to Colclough. "Permission to come aboard, Captain."

"Permission granted. You are very welcome, Captain Kerrigan."

"For not too long, I hope." Gerry's grin widened and she stepped forward. "I'd give you a hug, Jim, but under the circumstances, I'd better not. I'm not sure I'm going to get the reek out of my own clothes."

"Saves Hakim from being jealous."

"You wish."

"Which reminds me, I haven't offered you congratulations on your engagement. He finally wore you down, huh?"

Gerry blushed, something he thought he would never see, but he was even more pleased at how happy she looked. Embarrassing a friend, though, had not been his design. He changed the subject to talk of her ship, told her he thought she was a beauty.

"I thought so, too, until my encounter with my Tellarite client's finest bloodstock." Gerry, mindful of a tight schedule, turned business-like. "Jim, will you introduce me to my passengers?

He caught Tay's eye and the Vulcan stepped forward for introductions to be made. The other two were called Samel and the healer he named as Isran; Tay introduced both as his cousins.

Isran sent Tay a look as if to demand this was for real. He sympathised. The journey ahead was going to test anyone's gag reflex. Tay offered him a mildly enquiring raised eyebrow in response, which conveyed Isran was not compelled to go with them. Isran gazed at the open maw of the ship, straightened his shoulders, and returned Tay's look with one of determined assent.

Gerry trained that business-like expression on her intended passengers. "I hope Captain Kirk was totally frank about the status of my ship; I can get you to Vulcan in approximately seven hours, but as you may have already gathered, it is not a journey you will find remotely comfortable."

"Discomforts are of no consequence."

Gerry considered Tay for a moment. "Alrighty then, lets get this show on the road."

"Kirk, stop!" he finally had his answer where Briscoe had gone. "Colclough, you cannot let them board that vessel!"

xxx

Author's Note

Attribution of quotes used are:

"It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all." - James Thurber


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Kirk put himself in Briscoe's path, relief doomed to a short existence. Another moment and he might have relinquished the responsibility, rightly or wrongly, he had taken upon himself for his new friends.

"Kirk, are you a fool?"

"What now, Doctor? I believe Doctor McCoy's proved to you beyond reasonable doubt that Siran is not infectious."

Briscoe's eyes landed on Gerry's comely form; he looked scandalised. "Kirk, you cannot send him out with _her_ on that tiny ship."

Ah, that was what Briscoe was driving at. The thought hadn't entered his head. When Spock had gone through this, he had barely seemed aware of _Enterprise_'s female crew. Although had Spock's… er… situation been disclosed to them, he'd bet his friend would have had offers from willing partners by the shipload. No, Spock had been imprinted on T'Pring, only T'Pring.

Tay drew himself up to his full height and bestowed the frostiest of stares upon the doctor. "Vulcans do not attack others."

Colclough's jaw tightened, but he made no comment about his injured crew. Now was probably not the time to bring up his own adventures in the gym, either.

"You've told me he is not himself," Briscoe countered. "_Gloriana_'s two crewmembers that he put in my infirmary would also beg to differ." Well, of course Briscoe would spoil the party.

"My brother is no danger to Ms Kerrigan. We vouch for his conduct with our lives."

Well this was getting silly. Time was a passin'. "No need to go quite that far, I think." He caught Tay's eye and flicked his gaze toward the restraints that hung on the wall; never slow on the uptake, Vulcans. It helped that Tay shared his impatience to be gone.

"Doctor, if it will set your mind at rest, I shall place Siran in restraints and give Ms Kerrigan control of the number sequence for their release."

Briscoe sputtered, opened his mouth to argue more, and found the wind spilling out of his sails in the face of Vulcan reasonableness and a logical solution to a duly expressed concern.

Colclough sealed the deal. "You may have the restraints with my compliments," he said to Tay, giving the impression he would even carry the Vulcans aboard _Isolde_, perform the office of steward in by tucking them into their seat harnesses and lavishing upon their persons a comfy pillow and welcome aboard drink. Anything, just anything, to hasten their departure."

Briscoe, the battle lost, showed no desire to remain; he left in a snit. The aggrieved doctor's retreating form was his cue to let out a silent sigh of relief. By the time his attention turned back to the others, Colclough had already handed the restraints over to Tay. Colclough passed a data chip to Gerry, who stared at it a moment before realising it must contain the release code.

Tay was gentle with his brother, who appeared bewildered, eyes taking in the restraints on his wrist without comprehension. Tay nudged Siran in the direction of the open maw of _Isolde_. Siran looked dubious and balked, dissuaded by the assault on his olfactory processes.

"It's our means to get home, Siran."

And like that he tripped aboard without further demur. His cousins drew their robes closer about them, as though to gird themselves, before following Siran inside, which left only Tay.

"Live long and prosper, Captain Kirk." Tay raised his hand in the Vulcan salutation, to which he attempted a response in kind. No matter his practice in recent years, his efforts were still lamentable.

"Good luck, Tay." With the unspoken thought a challenge might lie in Siran's future, returning Tay's farewell with like for like was hardly fitting.

Tay nodded, thought a moment, and extended his hand in offer of a handshake. "Thank you, Captain." He shook the boy's hand, wondering what he made of this Terran custom. Tay only swallowed and added a stiff, "You have ensured my brother will have a chance."

"Remember, tell him not to leave himself open, when he feints to strike from his right." Tay accepted the advice with a thoughtful incline of his head, presumably contemplating his brother's ability with a lirpa in hand.

A current of air wafted something stomach churning out of _Isolde_ and blistered his nostrils. The suggestion formed on the tip of his tongue that Siran required a very necessary dunking in the Vulcan equivalent of a horse trough before any marriage ceremony; it wouldn't do if Siran's intended were to take one sniff and decide a challenge was the only way to go. He stifled the attempt at wit; Tay had enough to concern him.

Tay entered _Isolde_, and Colclough sealed the hatch on his erstwhile guests with an urgency scarcely decent.

xxx

Kirk's arrival on _Enterprise's_ transporter pad put a lid on his recent adventures. Home. He was glad for rescue from the shuttle pilot, who had not shut up the entire time of their journey together. He stepped down onto _Enterprise's_ deck plating, noting immediately how his girl felt lifeless beneath his feet, her usual thrum of leashed power absent. He would be glad to see the refit completed.

Kyle, the Transporter Chief, smiled in welcome. "Welcome back, Captain. I'll have your gear conveyed to your quarters, sir."

"Thank you, Chief."

McCoy, rather than Spock, waited upon him.

Kyle noted his surprise at that. "Mr Spock's compliments, sir, he would have been here to update you, but he's assisting Mr Scott in engineering."

That sounded ominous.

"Then that's where I am bound." He levelled an impatient stare at McCoy, who plainly was going to dog his steps. "If you want to talk, Bones, you're going to have to walk with me." He gave Kyle a final nod and left the transporter room.

"How did the court martial go?"

"It went. Thrown out of Starfleet."

"Well, no surprise there."

"No."

"You're going to make me ask, aren't you?"

"Doctor?"

"You know I'm talking about what that lil 'ol demand for my services was all about."

"Long story."

McCoy scurried to keep up. "I'll take the highlights, then."

"Ever ask yourself if love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?"

"All the time, Jim."

He sighed. "Your report did the trick with Briscoe. After much grinding of teeth, and since _Gloriana's_ captain had no interest in pursuing charges, he had no option than to let the boy and his companions go on their merry way."

"Even for a Vulcan, I doubt there was much to be merry about. I hope your new friend had more luck than Spock."

"Agreed." Whatever Siran's fate, by now it was decided; to enquire was unthinkable. They arrived at the turbo-lift and McCoy would likely have trailed after him and pestered him to start at the beginning, except that a ship wide call went out for the doctor to attend an emergency in sickbay. A welcome interruption; he had little desire to gossip on the subject, still curiously protective over the little band he had assisted and mindful of the fierce determination with which Vulcans guarded their privacy.

He hit engineering and the brutal workload of a refit in progress hit back. Hours later, he fell into bed, utterly spent, all thoughts of Vulcans and their harsh customs obliterated from his mind.

xxx


	5. Chapter 5

**PART II**

**Chapter 5**

Kirk, forewarned by Uhura of his admiral's displeasure, elected to take the call in the briefing room and not on the bridge. Command wanted Spock present, too, for whatever information was to be conveyed, a dictate made so specific it piqued both their curiosity. Uhura put the call through and the waspish features of Admiral Komack appeared on screen.

"Captain. Commander."

"Sir." If Komack looked this out of sorts, then it augured nothing good for any impending mission.

"Gentlemen, we have a situation that has come to a head on Matli."

Spock's presence for this briefing fell into place. This was all about Gurad, then. He'd surmised as much, indeed would not be much of a starship captain if he were unaware of the political fallout of Vulcan's efforts to settle a new colony in this sector of space. The colony, a close match to their parent world, a veritable home away from home, prospered. Gurad, however, lay close to Matli space, and the Matli had taken it amiss Vulcans should have the temerity to colonise a world so close to their own territory, no matter Gurad was a world incompatible with Matli physiology. Matli, it seemed, possessed even less tolerance for thin air and hellish heat than Terrans.

He met Spock's eye, aware a Vulcan diplomatic delegation had been allotted the task of defusing Matli antagonism. From where Komack was heading, he presumed that delegation had met with less than stellar success.

"The Vulcan delegation, Admiral?" Spock asked, proving he was already on the same page and his captain was not the only one who kept up with political developments.

"They have missed three scheduled check-ins with their superiors on Vulcan." Komack let out a huff of air, a sign of suppressed annoyance. "The last contact from the Vulcan delegation, and not through their normal channels, was that the Matli had manufactured a grievance and placed them under arrest for delivering a great insult."

"Insult, sir?" Apposite or not, a memory of Ambassador Sarek's abrasive personality surfaced in his mind.

"Their communication was curtailed, Kirk, a lot of it garbled. The delegation's leader seemed to say something about refusing a marriage contract, but like I say garbled, so don't take that as verbatim. Somehow the Vulcan High Council heard of _Enterprise's_ presence in the area," and Komack features morphed into an outright scowl, which probably meant T'Pau had been pulling strings behind the scenes, "and they have specifically asked she and her crew lend all aid and assistance in rescuing what we now assume are Vulcan captives."

No wonder Komack's nose was so out of joint; the admiral loathed the notion of Starfleet dancing to Vulcan's tune, and there was always the potential for a mission going belly-up and Starfleet left with egg on its face and managing the political fall-out for years to come. He could pretty much guess his instructions: a quiet, efficient extraction, with a minimum of fuss and no casualties on either side. Nevertheless, he would have Komack spell it out.

For the record, then. "Admiral, how much force am I authorised to use in pursuance of this mission?"

"The minimum consistent with achieving your goal, Captain!" Exactly the sort of non-answer answer he'd expected; it still galled.

Beside him, Spock stirred in his seat and addressed Komack in his most severe, most formal bearing that bespoke his own disapproval of their superior's winning way with words. "Admiral Komack, we shall require a copy of the delegation's last transmission."

"Already taken care of. _Enterprise_'s communications officer should have that by now, together with a full report of the delegation's objectives and the scope of their mission. You will also find additional material from Federation Intelligence and what Vulcan observers have been able to tell us, an abstract of what they believe has been going on in that sector." Komack's scowl deepened. "They're for the attention of captain and first officer only. Understood?"

"Aye, Admiral," they said in impromtu chorus.

Komack gave them a curt nod. "Get it done, Kirk. Komack, out."

The screen turned dark and he let out a breath of his own annoyance. "Well, Mr Spock, that was short and sweet."

"Indeed, Captain."

He reined in his temper and, after a pause for a calming breath, hit the comm panel switch. "Kirk to bridge."

"Sulu here, sir."

"Mr Sulu, lay in a course for the Matli homeworld. Warp factor six." He would not have the engines strained; they might need all of _Enterprise_'s power at her destination and for that he would need to keep his girl in fine fettle.

"Aye, sir."

"ETA?"

Chekhov said something he could not make out and Sulu added, "Twelve hours and fourteen minutes, Captain."

He thanked Sulu and turned his attention back to his first officer. "Alright, Spock, let's see what sort of mess has fallen in our lap."

xxx

Kirk sat in his quarters, eyes blurring with his efforts to concentrate on the information on his computer screen. Rubbing at his eyes probably wouldn't help; a conviction he should ask McCoy for help increased by the day, just that it would not be this day, not yet. Two hours out from Matli and he still knew not what to make of the material he'd been given to digest, a monstrosity of dubious and ambiguous intelligence. Nothing meshed. Questionable intelligence. Imagine that?

Spock, too, shared his assessment of the data. His first officer might prefer to engage his efforts in the relative certainties of scientific endeavours, nevertheless his political instincts were sound, something that ceased to surprise, after he discovered his friend's family background. He'd left Spock to analyse the Vulcan delegation's last communication, because it was utterly lost on him, a mess of Vulcan, interspersed with white noise, the quality so bad, the universal translator retreated in a magnificent sulk, and would have no truck with such impossible antics.

He eyed the empty coffee carafe on his desk. He needed a break, and a refill and a sandwich wouldn't go amiss either — he'd missed breakfast — so he headed off to main rec. He found McCoy there and settled in the seat opposite him, staring down the doctor's pointed perusal of his meal.

"You able to talk about what we might find on Matli, Jim?"

"Some of it. Damned if I know what to make of most of the stuff that's been marked as restricted, Bones. It amounts to a resounding 'we know nothing'."

"You'll get there." McCoy stared down at the cooling dregs of his own coffee. "Have we heard anything else from the Vulcan delegation?"

"Not a peep."

"Gurad is ready to send healers our way if we need them."

"Yes, I heard, but I'd rather not set off the Matli with Vulcan ships in their system, no matter how innocuous the passengers. Let's hope we don't need them." He munched into his sandwich, which put an effective halt in the conversation.

As reports went, that which detailed the delegation's mission objective amounted to a particularly turgid and indigestible exemplar and, aside from numbers — the delegation comprised five members of Vulcan's diplomatic service and one accompanying spouse — as he'd said to McCoy, it told him little. The delegation's mission was described in terms of assuaging Matli fears of what Vulcan expansion near Matli space meant, perhaps even to offer the carrot of trading opportunities with Federation worlds and the protection of said trade by Starfleet.

The intelligence reports, on the other hand, as usual were fat on theory and thin on real detail, although they did underline there had been no sign of Matli shipping in Federation space for the best part of three months, as if the Matli anticipated making an enemy. No reprisal impoundment of their shipping by Federation bureaucrats for them. No siree. But it seemed hardly credible the Matli should have suspended their entire trading fleet, so who were they trading with? The non-aligned worlds appeared to be the answer, a considerable proportion with the Orions, a lesser considerable proportion with the Gammenor Primacy, the latter an answer that gave him pause. He polished off one triangle of his sandwich, while he thought through the ramifications of that.

The Federation first encountered the Gammenori some nineteen years previously. In the intervening years, the Federation had very little to do with this newly discovered fellow tribe of space-farers, largely because they aggressively patrolled their borders, evincing little desire to extend diplomatic ties or even negotiate new trade routes. The Federation threw out any aspirations of pursuing friendly relations, when further study elicited the disturbing information their new neighbours were a society in which creeps like Colonel Green and Herr Schicklgruber would feel right at home; rumours, never substantiated, circled that the Gammmenori traded in the flesh of sentient beings, and in the early days of Gurad colonisation, a small number of Vulcan ships had disappeared, but no proof the Gammenori were responsible for those losses existed.

He paused mid chew. No one ever thought to match intelligence reports of the ebb and flow of Matli trade with movement of Gammenori vessels? It seemed hardly credible. Then again he might be barking up the wrong tree.

"What?" said McCoy.

"Got an idea." He put down the remains of his sandwich, dabbing at his hands with a napkin and steered a path toward a bulkhead with a comm panel. He palmed the comm switch and called up the bridge. "Uhura, I have no information on who exactly the Vulcans attempted to contact in the Matli government to discuss release of their people. Find out, please. Also, I want Gammenori comm chatter monitored until further notice."

"Gammemori, Captain?"

"Gammenori."

"Aye, sir." If his request startled Uhura, she was too professional to show it

"In the meantime, I'd like you to open a channel to the offices of T'Pau of Vulcan and inform her staff I should very much like to speak with her. I'll take the call in my quarters."

"Aye sir." Less of a surprise with missing Vulcans to be repatriated.

He dropped back into his seat at his and McCoy's table. "Go on, ask," he said to McCoy, who was doing a poor job of hiding his interest.

"T'Pau?"

"No one in the Matli government has deigned to return Vulcan's signals. I think the situation cries out for a more compelling imperative to garner said government's full and undivided attention."

McCoy's brows drew together. "And T'Pau will help with that? How?"

"Remains to be seen, but I have something in mind and it can't help to ask."

"And I can see you're not going to tell me any more." McCoy gave him a mock glower. "Oh, you tease, you."

He grinned, stuffed the remains of his sandwich in his mouth, grabbed what remained of his coffee and gave McCoy an airy wave. His good mood lasted until he made it back to his quarters and the morass of information to be wrangled into some sort of explanatory narrative. He summoned up all his patience, looked at what the intelligence reports, mostly Vulcan reports, said about Gammenori and Matli shipping movements and was glad he did. Interesting. Still, never had he been so happy to take Uhura's call; it rescued him from an impending headache.

To his surprise, T'Pau herself was on the channel. A surprise, since the old trout, had troubles aplenty, beset by political adversaries of an isolationist persuasion; less astounding was the impassive gaze she bestowed on him, betraying none of those concerns.

He did not dwell on pleasantries and got straight down to business. "Ma'am, we'll be arriving at Matli within the hour, but that is not why I am calling. What sort of terms are you on with the Orion syndicate?"

T'Pau tilted her head in a manner reminiscent of Spock. "What do you have in mind, Kirk?" Interesting to hear her speech shorn of antique flourishes.

So much for his brilliant idea. The matriarch's difficulties at home presented an unexpected hitch to his plans. The High Council had placed her under investigation; she did not elaborate why, and he had not the temerity to enquire, but it did mean she was not normally allowed outgoing communications. _Enterprise's_ current mission presumably qualified for an exemption. Damn.

Fortunately, T'Pau had a solution. "Kirk, you may contact the Orion attaché on Vulcan. As Terrans might say, he owes me a favour. Mention my name."

He proffered his thanks and T'Pau signed off.

As it happened, the Matriarch of Vulcan and the Orion attaché, an astonishingly receptive and accommodating person, proved easier nuts to crack than Admiral Komack, who was a lot less inclined to listen to an uppity captain.

"Order _Farragut_ and _Apollo_ to sector…" Komack's jaw worked for a moment, while his brain wrapped itself around his request. "Two ships, Kirk!" Komack said, attesting to his solid grasp of arithmetic. "Kindly explain to me, Captain, why the hell I should do this?"

"Of course, sir, I quite understand if Command has not the resources to carry out patrols at this time." Resources were not a problem. He knew that. Komack knew that. "The Vulcans have a stake in this and, it occurs to me, they may very well be prepared to undertake the patrols themselves." A risky strategy, this, to raise the spectre of a perception Starfleet wasn't doing everything in its power to help Vulcan in its cause. In the current political climate on Vulcan, the Federation Council exerted itself to do all it could to assist T'Pau in warding off political rivals, who sought to reduce the Matriarch's status to that of figurehead alone. Only a fool would take the risk of blighting one's career prospects by doing anything to weaken T'Pau's position. Who was _Enterprise's_ first officer again?

Komack ground his teeth. "What will this patrol achieve? I say again, Captain, why the hell should I do this?" he asked, more for the sake of form.

And so explain he did and, while Komack might have agreed to his plan, the admiral conveyed an unsettling feeling he was allowing him enough rope to hang himself.

"Anything else, Captain?"

"Sir, I would convey to _Farragut_'s and _Apollo_'s captains they should not be bashful about making a noisy entrance and turning the place upside down, when they get there." Shake that tree.

In that Komack, at least concurred, ascribing to the principal if one were to do a thing, it should be done thoroughly. Komack gave him a final curt nod and signed off, which left him staring at the intelligence material again.

He huffed. He needed more data, a great deal more data, but for the moment he had done what he could.

xxx


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

As soon as _Enterprise_ established standard orbit around Matli, Kirk ordered a yellow alert and for Uhura to open hailing frequencies.

Two Matli cruisers took up formation at their rear; he ignored them, the yellow alert wasn't for their benefit. The Matli were a post-warp capable society, but only just and the vessels shadowing _Enterprise_ might well be the cream of the Matli fleet, but they were woefully outmatched. Ah, yes, technology and what the Matli might do for the promise of better?

Those turgid intelligence reports — he was beginning to suspect subtext was all.

Over the next half hour he was subjected to what would commonly be called the run around. Matli's first minister was not available to take his calls, likewise the deputy minister. He caught Spock's eye, whose controlled, rigid stance, indicated his own waning patience with proceedings. Never mind. This was a game, and he could summon up the patience to play, but if he thought for a moment the diplomatic delegation was in immediate danger, Captain Hard Ass would toss out Captain Philosophical on his ear.

Well, until the Matli decided they were going to come to the dance, he had little else to occupy him. He ambled over to Spock's station, where his first officer employed _Enterprise_'s sensors to search for Vulcan life signs,

"Any further news about the location of the Vulcan delegation?"

"I have performed several extensive sensor sweeps, yet I am unable to discern their presence and I believe I now know why. It appears transporter suppression fields are being employed on the surface. Our sensors are unable to penetrate the interference they create. If the Vulcans remain on Matli, then logically they must be concealed beneath the umbrella of those fields."

"Transporter jammers?" That made him come to a screeching halt.

"Quite so, Captain."

"This situation keeps getting better and better, Mr Spock." Transport jammers. A whole new ball game, when it came to technology, and not something the Matli at their level of technological attainment would have developed on their own terms. They might have warp drive; their ships were not equipped with transporters — at least that was current understanding. Presently, transporter jammers remained a technology not employed in Federation space, mostly since its conception and development occurred well outside the Federation, and their own technologists still worked on reverse engineering the few trashed devices which had fallen into their hands.

"Indeed, Captain."

"Anything more on the messed up Vulcan comm—?"

"Captain," Uhura butted in, "excuse me, sir, I think you should hear this." At a nod, she put it on audio.

"—pounded my ship. The Orions refuse to release my vessel. They are evasive, but I know this is Vulcan retribution. I cannot bear the costs of any delay." Whoever uttered these words lost their cool, when their contact on the surface, apparently at a loss in how to respond to the outpouring of anger and screamed threats, resorted to the simple expedient of closing the channel, reducing the distressed captain to further howls of outrage.

He snorted. Well, well, that was quick. "How about T'Pau? She got right on that!"

A crease appeared on Spock's brow. "You asked T'Pau—?"

"For a favour, yes. Er, where were we?"

A raised eyebrow signalled his first officer tabling that little tidbit of information. "You asked about the delegation's last communication. Admiral Komack did not exaggerate that it is garbled, and that the Matli invoked an exceptionally old custom of an exchange of marriage partners was also correct."

"One of the delegation was accompanied by a spouse, I mean bondmate."

"The communication makes reference to them being forcibly separated and the male in the pairing—"

"Went nuts!"

Spock conveyed a proper Vulcan affront at such a characterisation, but he didn't say anything to refute his words. What the hell were they getting into?

xxx

It was another seventy two minutes before Kirk received an invitation to the surface. An Assembly Member, it seemed, had been pushed to the front of the queue and would be obliged to speak with them. He kept the landing party small, with only McCoy to accompany him, news which reduced DeMarco, his new chief of security, almost to tears of professional despair. But bringing in a full complement of security would only serve to frighten their contact on the surface even more. Still, he had his ship monitor them and ready for an emergency beam out, if they hit trouble.

They materialised in the open air of the compound that housed the offices of the planetary council. He was not one for ostentatious displays of wealth, but the compound did not impress; it reminded him more of a down at heel college campus. A whiff of something that approached boiled cabbage in its noxiousness assaulted his nostrils.

He expected more games, expected to be kept waiting, but no sooner had they arrived than a male Matli, a bunch of flunkies dancing attendance on him, emerged from the the nearest building and greeted them.

"I never thought to witness such a materialisation with my own eyes. That was most disquieting. Forgive me, I am Assembly Member Trukoi." A claim, the formal garb of his white over cloak would bear out, except the assembly member wore it with anything other than authority. Physically, Matli were close to Terrans in appearance, but with heavier, thick-set frames. Prominent eye ridges gave them a pugnacious, almost a Neanderthal appearance. This was not his first rodeo, though, and one should never, ever judge a book by its cover. Trukoi did not include his aides, who wore darker cloaks signifying a less exalted status, in the introductions and he took his cue from him, similarly ignoring them. Horses for courses, different strokes and all that.

"I am James T Kirk, captain of _Enterprise_. This is Doctor Leonard McCoy, my chief medical officer."

"Gentlemen." Trukoi gave them a small bow. "My fellow assembly members have asked I speak with you. I feel I should issue a warning; I have very limited influence in governmental affairs and am at a loss as to what I may do for you."

Yeah, right. Game on, he might scoff, were it not that all his experience told him that Trukoi was a man suffering a lot of of stress. "Assembly Member Trukoi." He marshalled his most concerned and judicious face. "It is rather what I may do for you."

"Me?"

"Forgive me, Assembly Member, I should be more specific. I meant what I may do for Matli."

Trukoi stared at him, not quite understanding where he was going. "What—?"

"Have you not heard the Orion syndicate has taken your trading vessels into custody — something ostensibly about Vulcan customs violations, apparently — and, I gather, Vulcan has importuned Starfleet Command to assist in apprehending any other Matli vessels that may be operating within Federation space?"

News, judging from Trukoi's expression. The Assembly Member swallowed and a hand surreptitiously smoothed along the surface of his cloak, wiping away moisture. So much for his theory the seizure of Matli vessels was the impetus for the Matli to open communications.

"Frankly, sir, Vulcan threatens to put all of the Federation in an uproar." An exaggeration, but one the assembly member little apprehended if the slightly dazed expression on his face was any witness. "Starfleet Command, sir, has little desire to find itself in the middle of what we believe is a matter for civilian courts to address. I speak, of course, of the Vulcan delegation that I understand Matli authorities have placed under arrest, but," and he subjected Trukoi to an expression of sympathy one apparatchik might extend to a fellow traveller, a recognition of the labours one must endure for the sake of fulfilling one's duties. He had only to dwell on Komack's graceless command style to make the emotion entirely sincere. "But," he said, and allowed a pause for emphasis, "there are those in the Federation who would tell you Vulcan has a way of securing what Vulcan wants."

Trukoi quivered in a manner he deciphered was a display of Matli offence. "Is that supposed to be a threat, Captain?"

And he had been trying so hard, too.

"Assembly Member, someone with a sound grasp of how to impart menace would draw your attention to his ship, currently in standard orbit about your planet, capable of razing your cities to the ground in minutes, and downing the ships shadowing his vessel's movements in even less time. The sort of charmless fellow, who would demand the missing Federation citizens be turned over, unless Matli wished to suffer the consequences."

Trukoi swallowed.

He stared at the man. "Assembly Member, that is not Starfleet's way. I am here to help, I assure you."

Trukoi stared at him, as if trying to determine the depth of his sincerity. His shoulders slumped. "Come to my office," he said, turning to lead the way.

The invitation made him wary. In the end, he acquiesced only because his reading of Trukoi told him the man was trustworthy. What misgivings he possessed waned a little more at the sight of Trukoi's office, a space wearing all the dusty aspect of academe, even though the office was light and airy. Quite the trick to pull off an impression of prevailing fustiness, when a large window monopolised almost an entire side of the room.

Trukoi bid they be seated in ornate chairs and called for his staff to prepare tea, served in respectful silence, while Trukoi put the call out for fellow assembly members to join him in his office. Trukoi's contacts seemed reluctant to respond, and their misgivings reawakened his own hefty slug of apprehension.

"Forgive me," Trukoi said, "I must briefly take my leave."

Huh? Who would do that?

His hackles rose. No sooner had the assembly member left, than he rose to his feet and took position at the large window. He pushed aside vertical blinds and stared at the view. This facility was built on high ground and the Matli capital, bisected by a large river, was laid out as though a map on an immense table. He craned his neck further forward, until he could see the beam down point below, but he saw no sign of Trukoi. His activity disturbed and dismayed Trukoi's aides, but he spared them little mind.

He flipped open his communicator. "Kirk to _Enterprise_."

"Spock, here."

"Locate my position, Spock. Any unexpected," translation: armed and objectionable, "visitors making a bee line for McCoy and I?"

"Negative, Captain."

Welcome relief. The tension in his shoulders eased. "Understood, Spock, but keep your eyes peeled. Kirk out."

Trukoi's people stared at him in a disciplined silence, but his worries Trukoi might be duplicitous and concerns for his and McCoy's safety, had not gone unnoticed; the expressions now trained upon him, ranged from annoyance to steely dislike. Time to talk them down, except another impediment to his cause presented itself.

The aides exhibited a frisson of astonishment he was prepared to trespass upon the bounds of custom and propriety by acknowledging them, and in so flagrant a manner, but in the end they evidently put it down to his alien ways. His, and McCoy's attention, flattered them and — after he walked back his unfortunate suspicions about Trukoi — they were very, very forthcoming. They might be young, but they were intelligent and trained for politics, unlike Trukoi, an academic, who answered his people's need for representation, when others were too fearful to do so, and for which his staff adored him. He made a note not to offend their devotion again.

They feared for Trukoi's safety, and he discovered their earlier discomfiture at him venturing near the window, resulted from an alarming incidence of political assassination. The picture they painted amounted to a world roiling in chaos. They had much to say about when that chaos had first started, which meshed with some of the intelligence he'd just read, and which he filed away for later consideration. What did not mesh was the egregious omission of why the compound of the planetary council resembled a college campus, for a campus was precisely what it was, the previous structure had been taken out with a photon torpedo.

After twenty minutes, during which the aides stared at a wall mounted clock with various levels of anxiety, one by one they fell silent.

"So, do you know what happened with the Vulcan delegation?" he asked in an attempt to get them talking again.

"First Minister, Arok Jomadai," the aide, he now knew as Eselleese, said.

"Jomadai?" McCoy asked, so far his chief medical officer had kept a watching brief, letting his captain do most of the talking.

Eselleese made a noise somewhere between a snort and a growl. "He has friends in high places."

It took him a moment to understand. "Offworlders?"

His question elicited a tight nod of agreement. "Understand, those Matli who support his bid for power, are a canker in our society. They stand for the very worst of us. They purposely went out of their way to pick a fight with the Vulcan visitors."

"The Vulcans could have been less offensive in their refusal of a Matli bride," a young aide commented, and was rounded upon by his elders for his pains.

"Don't be a stupid waste of a cloak, Dhokan. Even I know Vulcans mate for life and, unlike you, I have not been offworld."

"There's no need to be nasty, Eselleese."

Elleeese cast her gaze towards the clock again. "I apologise, but oblige me by thinking before uttering the opposition's propaganda in my presence again. Understood?"

"I don't understand why — what's his name again, Jomadai? — why did he pick a fight?" McCoy said.

"We're not sure," said another aide, whose name he could not remember. "Drunk on his own power, perhaps. Trukoi may be able to peel off the cloak around your question, but we do not know."

"We need more data," Eselleese said. "Talking of fights, the Vulcan male attempted to protect his wife. I understand he put five of Jomadai's louts in the hospital before he himself sustained serious injury and likewise joined them."

He drew in a tight breath. Not what he wanted to hear.

McCoy zeroed in on that particular detail. He levelled an open smile at Eselleese, laced with southern charm. "Y'know I have some expertise in patching up injured Vulcans. Any chance I might get to see him?"

Eselleese stared uncertainly at the doctor. "Trukoi has no authority over those who have arrested that Vulcan."

McCoy met his eye. _That_ Vulcan? As opposed to other Vulcans over whom he might have authority?

"Tell me he's in a medical facility and not a prison cell, at least," McCoy said.

"We are not savages, McCoy." Her eyes would not meet the doctor's, though.

McCoy's own gaze flicked toward him again, but whatever he might have said was silenced when his communicator chirped for attention. "Kirk, here."

Spock. "Sir, we detect eight people I assume are en route to your position."

"Assume how?"

"Four of them are Vulcans."

"You couldn't have said that first?" He moved to the window, this time more circumspect with the blinds. "I don't see…" A clattering in the hallway outside announced their presence and a moment later Trukoi and the party trooped in.

"We are releasing these people to your care, Captain." Trukoi said.

Four down, two to go. "In that case, Assembly Member Trukoi," he said, flipping open his communicator. "I am going to beam them up to _Enterprise_ immediately." He stared at Trukoi and his companions, waiting for objections to his obvious next step, but there was only dull acceptance. "Bones, go back to the ship with our new guests."

"Jim—" McCoy glanced at the the delegation, then at the Matli assembly members, and scowled.

"Turn that frown upside down, Bones."

If anything the scowl deepened.

"I shall be fine. Really." He knew what he was about. He read people, read them well, and these particular Matli bore him no ill will. They needed him.

Trukoi exhaled a breath when the Vulcans and a reluctant McCoy dematerialised and his office was less over run. "I shall say it again, Captain, I know not how you and your people submit to such an apparatus." Trukoi was nervous and making conversation.

"I find one gets used to it very quickly and pays the transporter no mind after a while."

Trukoi nodded, but hardly acknowledged the content of his response. Trukoi's staff went into overdrive, arranging seating and setting a kettle to heat. The assembly member waved his visitors to sit and he plonked his own form in a chair opposite his Starfleet guest. Trukoi brushed a hand against the surface of his cloak.

Trukoi cleared his throat. "Truly, Captain, we do not desire conflict. Can you help us?"

Even though his insides were already awash in tea, he sipped from yet another cup an aide presented. "Do you speak for all of Matli?"

Trukoi stared at his fellow assembly members, who fidgeted and were keen to leave all of the talking to him. "No, but enough for our world view to prevail. We can only move forward if we have the votes, and we are confident that we do, enough to oust the current coalition from power. The resolution before council was already scheduled before your arrival. It will take place tomorrow and should go someway to convince you we are in earnest."

Time for honesty. "Trukoi, the best assurance of that would be to secure the release of the remaining Vulcans. If you know where they are, my ship can beam—"

"My colleagues and I are working on their release, Captain!" When Trukoi saw that his guest was about to object, he leaned forward and continued in the most forceful tone he had used yet. "Understand, sir, that such tactics as you propose are what left us in the mess we presently enjoy. I am trying to establish trust with some of our political adversaries. There are those who have come to realise that their more belligerent associates are putting Matli on the road to destruction; they can be persuaded to come back to us, but not if we are shown to be relying on the might of outsiders."

He spent the next two hours treated to additional study in Matli history and politics, interrupted only by Spock at intervals, demanding he check in to confirm his safety and well-being, and who was duly satisfied when no duress word was uttered to indicate otherwise.

At Spock's latest call, he asked, "You assigned Ensigns Hansel and Gretel to the new duty roster?" Well, he rather thought Vulcan sensibilities would balk at Romeo and Juliet, or Abelard and Héloïse; as code, it served just as well.

"I have not. I regret to say they are delinquent in their duties."

"Acknowledged, Kirk out."

Three pots of tea later, with Trukoi demonstrating his true colours as an academic in delivering an impromptu tutorial, his companions chiming in from time to time, he gained a clearer picture of the fraught affair that constituted Matli politics. Trukoi's aides had already mentioned assassination, as a tool of political expediency, infested the whole process, but one of Trukoi's fellow assembly members was missing an arm, evidence of an attack that didn't quite succeed. Trukoi's evident apprehension took on a whole new shape and his estimation of the man and his companions went up a notch or two.

At last, his bladder, and his duties aboard _Enterprise_ demanded his return to his ship. He took his leave of Trukoi, the other assembly members, and Trukoi's staff, and impressed upon them they should contact him if they required assistance. The blood curdling tales they had told, as if this were the daily norm, had made a big impression on him and now he worried for them. He silenced the part of himself that pointed out Command would have words for him on the matter of picking sides, since he was skirting perilously close to prime directive territory. Matli might be a warp drive capable society, but only just.

Command might bellyache, but he rather thought there would be a change of tune once it learned their intelligence reports didn't cover the half of it.

xxx


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Kirk materialised on the transporter pad. Kyle, the transporter chief, was conspicuous by his absence, his station occupied by Spock, who evidently had performed the beam-up.

"Uh oh, I know that expression."

An eyebrow rose in reproof. "Sir," said Spock, at his most punctilious, but nevertheless course set and laid in, "you are my Captain, and I am bound to follow your orders, but I would be remiss in my duties if I were to fail to caution you that being the landing party's singular presence, with no protection and no back-up, is markedly unwise."

"DeMarco got to you, too, huh?"

Spock folded his arms across his chest. "Jim!"

He grinned and stepped off the transporter pad. "Well, Mr Spock, I consider myself properly rebuked."

One would hardly credit it, but Spock's gaze became even flintier. Uh oh, indeed. He put a lid on the flippancy. "DeMarco is right. It is unwise, but we are playing for higher stakes than just the safety of a starship captain."

"You have discovered information not covered in the intelligence reports?"

"The intelligence reports don't cover the half of it." He sniffed the arm of his shirt and wrinkled his nose. "Walk with me. I need a change of clothes, my shirt stinks of something like boiled cabbage. Any news on the missing people?" he said, as Spock obligingly fell into step with him.

"We may have located the male Vulcan. Further to what we have gleaned and since, as Doctor McCoy and the head of the delegation advise, he was injured, the most logical place to find him would be the hospital in the capital, and there is indeed a wing on that site, which employs a transporter suppression field."

"I still can't get over they're using those things. That's some advanced technology to play around with."

"Indeed, and I am attempting to analyse the suppression field signature for a match with those we know who use them in an endeavour to determine where the Matli acquired them from."

"My guess is the Gammenori."

"A feasible conjecture. As to the injured Vulcan, the obvious assumption is that the male Vulcan is the occupant at the hospital, unless this is a Matli deception."

"What do you think?"

"The capitol also accommodates two separate security facilities, both of which have similarly shielded quarters and there are other smaller fields. I cannot rule out his presence at the alternative sites. Nevertheless, I think it more likely he is in the hospital. The delegation's leader reports his injuries were extensive and the Matli appear to have expended more energy in making an issue over his bondmate, and of she, we have no clue of her whereabouts."

"Do I have to consider a worst case scenario?"

"That they may be deceased, Captain?"

He nodded.

"Unlikely, I should think. The female Vulcan, in particular, appears to be the instrument of a Matli stratagem, whatever that may prove to be. It would not serve them well, if she were to have been harmed."

"That's what I'm thinking."

"Indeed, except that one may not rule out mischance and misadventure," Spock said, as though his object were to depress him all over again. "It is a development we must consider, since our sensors detected the four Vulcans, we have already recovered, as soon as they were removed from the cover of a transporter suppression field."

"You're a regular ray of sunshine, you know that, Mr Spock."

Spock inclined an eyebrow, to underline that he was, after all, the one who'd asked.

"Talking of the delegation, would you convey my regards to its head and ask him to join the pair of us in briefing room one at 1600 hours."

"Aye, sir."

"Any good news?"

"If we should succeed in recovering either one of the pair alive and conscious, they will know whether the other remains alive or not."

"Well, my gut tells me they are both alive."

"Forgive me, Captain, but I would prefer to work on more than your intestinal perspicacity."

"Well, in that, Mr Spock, we are in utter agreement." At that point in the conversation, they reached his quarters and Spock left him and went off to mind the store.

xxx

Was it his imagination or had that sonic shower made little impact on the smell he fancied still clung to his person. Uhura's call caught him with one leg inside his pants.

"Kirk."

"Captain, you asked me to report on Gammenori comm chatter."

"I did. Any spikes?"

"Well, that's just it, sir. No spikes, in fact no nothing. A complete absence in sub-space."

"That's odd." His shirt, stuck about his ears, muffled his voice and he yanked it into place.

"Aye, sir. It makes a strange contrast to the Matli. I have monitored another seven calls of upset captains reporting their ships have been seized and the Matli authorities attempting to resolve the situation with the Orions."

"What was the Orions response?"

"Short shrift, sir." Uhura smothered a snort and he gathered the Orions had minced no words.

Ha! That should keep the pressure on. "Understood. Keep me posted."

"Aye, sir."

xxx

Komack's call, demanding an update, interrupted both Kirk's early dinner — this time he'd missed lunch — and his perusal of a new report of shipping movements in the sector. He was starving and spared a longing eye for his chicken sandwich and coffee, but what could you do.

_Farragut_ and _Apollo_ reported little amiss.

Komack had heard of his appeal to T'Pau, a development the admiral obviously appeared less than happy about; surprise T'Pau had stooped to take his call, openly weighed with what ulterior motive or motives lay behind such ready co-operation. Komack huffed, in what was proving to be his default sentiment, but was at least pleased to hear _Enterprise_ had recovered the majority of the Vulcans.

At this point he chose not to mention offworlder interference in Matli affairs, not without more data to present first. Anyway, he'd bet Komack knew more than he cared to let on.

The admiral's call made him late to his meeting with Iskar, the head of the delegation. He wolfed his sandwich and took his coffee with him; it was the real thing from his private store, too precious to let grow cold and go to waste.

He entered the briefing room, where Spock and the head of the delegation were already seated. "I apologise for keeping you waiting, Iskar."

As one might expect, Iskar betrayed no impatience for his tardiness, simply regarding him with Vulcan calm and collection "It is quite alright, Captain. I understand the claims you must have upon your time."

He indicated his own cup and offered refreshment that was declined, so he got to the heart of the matter.

"What happened?" he said, taking his own seat next to Spock.

"I believe that the situation may be described as a clusterfuck."

The comment caught him mid-swallow and a mouthful went down the wrong way. He spent the next minute coughing, spluttering and purple in the face. Spock leaned over and gave him a helpful wallop on the back that rattled his teeth.

He smothered another cough. "Iskar, please don't do that!"

"Oh, is the usage not correct? I was attempting, as I believe you say, a 'when in Rome approach'."

Spock, at his most impassive Vulcan self, said, "The usage is correct and I would endorse the assessment, except the word is entirely vulgar."

"I see," said Iskar, digesting their response; the blunder appeared to have disquieted him.

His airway cleared enough for him to add, "And I have been on the surface and would likewise agree about correct usage." He cast a discreet eye at Spock, who was subjecting Iskar to an intense forensic stare, seemingly sharing his curiosity of whether such a minor blunder was emblematic of a diplomat with a tin ear for the customs and proprieties of other races. Small missteps sometimes led to big consequences.

"In that case I might add that I erred. I over assessed Matli capacity for logic."

That sounded more like it, if not at all promising. He rubbed his still watering eyes. "What was the objective of your mission?"

The question brought Iskar up short. "Surely you have been briefed, Captain?"

"Oh, I have, but it is astonishing what sometimes gets lost in translation, not to mention reports have a habit of leaving out that which is implicit in one's instructions."

"In that case, I would reiterate what you must have already heard: the objectives of our mission were designed to assuage Matli fears of Vulcan expansion in this sector as Gurad continues to prosper. I was also authorised to offer the prospect of new trading opportunities with Federation worlds and provide assurances of the protection of any new trade by Starfleet." Iskar saw Terran restiveness at this last point and was quick to reassure him. "That latter consideration has been sanctioned by Starfleet Command."

He sipped his coffee. "Yes, much of the reports I read all made similar points." Assuaging Matli fears, indeed. Incite Matli paranoia more like. He stared at Iskar, trying to determine whether the head of the delegation was as blind to nuance, as his words would have him believe. It seemed hardly credible; perhaps Iskar was merely keeping his cards close to his chest, and he knew full well how difficult it was to read Vulcans. He needed more data.

"So, when did the mission go belly-up?" You want a colloquialism? Run with that.

"When," said Spock, performing the office of Kirk to Vulcan translator and spoiling all the fun, "did matters go awry?"

"Our mission was troubled from the first. Our initial contacts within the Matli Assembly would not come forward, not to discuss matters in earnest, at least. My team and I spoke to many Matli assembly members, but when it came to discussing specifics, they made excuses and absented themselves. It did not take us long to discover the Matli responsible for intimidating his rivals, an individual with a far more belligerent character. He proved quite intractable."

"You mean First Minister Jomadai?"

"Yes."

"You spoke with him?"

"Yes."

"What are your impressions of him?"

"An individual who seemed very sure of himself. A clever man, but possessing an unpleasant, vindictive streak and quick to use any sort of intimidation to achieve a goal. We saw him use these tactics on a fellow Matli; an instructive, if not an edifying experience."

After what he'd learned from Trukoi and his staff that seemed par for the course.

"However, Jomadai and his staff were pleasant and courteous to us, at first," Iskar said.

"How long did that last?"

"Not long."

"You made him the offer of greater trading opportunities? How did he respond?"

"I hardly know. His response was so inconsistent. One moment he appeared pleased at the prospect, the next he would accuse Vulcan of seeking to deny Matli the means of expanding their territory. It was all most illogical."

"Sounds to me, Jomadai was treating you and your people to an object lesson in how to keep an opponent off balance."

A lofted eyebrow bespoke surprise. "It seems a very illogical way to go about it."

"Not if they were looking to pick a fight." Another discreet glance to Spock. He knew his friend well enough to know Iskar's response left him less than impressed.

"Well, in that case his behaviour served."

He finished his coffee and tossed into the conversation, "My landing party was met by Assembly Member Trukoi."

"Then you had better success than us. I know of him and by that stage, we would have been pleased to extend overtures even to an academic. He avoided us, though. Quite assiduously, I might add."

Unlike Iskar, he would cut the Matli assembly member some slack. Of more interest was the calculation Assembly Member Trukoi had been scared out of his wits, when he had come out to formally greet the Starfleet visitors, yet meet them he had, which corroborated Trukoi's assessment of a changing political landscape. Was that why Jomadai had responded to the Vulcans as he had? A reckoning of his own eroding power base? Nothing served to bring a world together quite so well than contending against an offworld foe.

Iskar fell silent, tenting his fingers in front of him and tapped fingertip to fingertip, fingertip to fingertip. So mannered a gesture. Summoning up Vulcan discipline because the rest of the conversation was going to be difficult?

"After three days in Jomadai's company, we knew enough to be wary of him. Such caution proved warranted."

"You did not consider a call for an immediate extraction?" Spock asked.

"I did, and I would, had not our communications been jammed."

No more coffee. He put down his empty cup, wishing for a refill. Later. "Which served a similar result: to alert Vulcan that something was seriously amiss."

"Yes, Captain."

Iskar again lapsed into silence for a moment, staring at his hands once more, and his inquisitors gave him space. "The Matli leader began to speak of a tradition amongst their people, used to promote closer ties between allies. An exchange of wives." Iskar's eyes tracked in his direction. "You know that one of my team brought her bondmate along. I thought the experience would be good for them, especially as he was considering a change of career to the diplomatic corps. The pair may be full young; they do, however, show much promise and I am a great proponent of early training. I must confess I did not anticipate the Matli's absurd proposition."

"You objected?" Spock said.

"Of course I objected. I explained that the ties between bondmates may not be put asunder."

Or, in other words, a bondmate's for life, not just for Christmas. He gave himself a stern talking to for his ill-timed frivolity and brought his attention back to Iskar.

"I prepared thoroughly for this assignment, Captain, and all the data I acquired on Matli society and its customs made no mention of such a ritual."

So the self-justification part of the conversation had now begun. Spock regarded Iskar with a stony expression; yet another nugget, which garnered a poor reception.

The last thing he needed, though, was for Iskar to clam up and so he offered soothing words. "I'm not surprised. Trukoi informed me the practice was an old one, not performed for centuries."

"The Matli intended to provoke," Spock said.

"Indeed. When they came to take my young team member away, her bondmate became aggressive." Iskar stirred in discomfort. "Please understand he is very young. Very young, indeed, Captain. They intended to provoke and they achieved their goal. He would not have meted out his own retribution, if they had not attempted to restrain him."

"How badly did they injure him?"

Iskar inspected his hands again. "I have no training as a healer. I think it likely he has broken bones, probably internal injuries. His injuries would likely repair well under a healing trance. In his present state, however, I think he is too agitated to initiate one. The furore did at least afford us an opportunity for one of my associates to break into a communications facility and send out a distress call."

"Do you know where they've taken your kids?"

"No."

That would be too easy, of course.

"It would be logical to assume the nearest hospital facility for our injured colleague, but of his bondmate I have no idea." Iskar's mask of Vulcan imperturbability faltered for a fleeting moment. "I think you should be aware First Minister Jomadai, when he was made aware we had sent out a call for assistance, cautioned against a rescue bid, Captain."

"Did he now?"

"I mention it because Jomadai says he fitted her with what sounds like a variation on a neuro-lytic restraint."

Spock's eyebrows rose. "That is not technology the Matli have developed on their own."

"No, it is not," Iskar said.

That was a nasty little wrinkle. "Did you see this device on your team member? Is there any chance Jomadai was bluffing?"

"I have not seen her since Jomadai's people took her away. Consequently, there is no way for me to answer your question as to whether Jomadai was bluffing." Alas, Vulcans weren't the type for intestinal perspicacity.

"Well," he said, rising to his feet, signalling the meeting was at an end, "we'll take it from here, Iskar." Their guest, belatedly understanding he was being dismissed, also rose to his feet. "Please let Mr Spock, or I, know if you, or your team, require anything."

He waited for Iskar to leave the briefing room before he turned to Spock, who, ever mindful of Starfleet protocols had not remained seated when his captain had got up on his hind legs. "What do you think?"

"I find it hard to credit." Spock grouched, yes grouched, and his own eyebrows must have shot up in surprise, because his Vulcan friend immediately schooled his expression into immobility.

"Explain," he said, dropping back into his chair and waving Spock to be seated also.

"Iskar's mission was not what one might describe as routine, yet he thought it fitting to add two very young Vulcans to the delegation, and a bonded pair at that."

"Plainly you disapprove."

"Indeed, Captain." Spock folded his arms, as if that were the final comment on the subject.

"Well, Mr Spock, you can't just leave me hanging there."

"Their youth, particularly the male, makes them volatile. I am in favour of providing good in the field training. This was not the mission for it, however. An older Vulcan would not have responded thus. If the Vulcan youth is as agitated as Iskar reports, then his life is in danger and I have no great expectations of Matli medical skills to keep him alive, until we might recover him."

"Yeah, the injured boy cannot wait for a leisurely rescue." He hit the comm panel before him. "Mr DeMarco to briefing room one."

xxx


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"A cutting out expedition, sir?" DeMarco asked, beside himself with glee; finally, a mission to sink his teeth into. Security trained for complicated rescue scenarios, but it remained training hardly ever called upon.

"Mr DeMarco, take heed," Spock warned, "we have reason to believe one of the subjects is injured and may not be co-operative."

"Understood, sir. The Matli are using transporter jammers?"

"Yes," Spock said.

He sat back and let his people talk turkey and took his measure of DeMarco, who, while young to be the head of a department, was hardly a neophyte. As _Enterprise_'s captain, it stuck in his craw that this was one mission he would not be going on, let alone leading, but he stifled his sulking. If only he might target a phaser strike on the structures that housed those damn transporter blocks. Out of the question. Sledgehammer to crack a nut, and too much likelihood of collateral damage measured in lost lives.

DeMarco had a faraway look in his eye. "Do we know the extent of the field's radius, Mr Spock?"

"One thousand metres."

DeMarco winced. "Oh, well, gotta work with what we got." DeMarco said, thinking aloud. "Captain, I would recommend small teams of six. Make our presence as discrete and low key as possible." He spared a jaundiced eye for the red garb of his uniform. "We have something that resembles Matli cloaks in ship's stores that should help."

Six? DeMarco had lost his mind?

"As I am sure Mr Spock has already reported, sir. The jammers play havoc with our instruments. I'd bet that hospital and the other two large sites are packed to the rafters with guards. I could take all of Security and get bogged down in a firefight. The last thing I'd think you'd want, sir."

"You think right, DeMarco."

"So, my plan is to go after the jammers on each site. Go after their power supply. Knock them out, and our instruments will pick out the Vulcans in the affected areas. Should allow for an easy beam out, sir."

Quick. Simple. Efficient. Except there was that nasty little wrinkle to consider. "You may not have heard the injured boy's bondmate has been fitted with a neuro-lytic restraint."

DeMarco's face fell. "Aw, hell, that's going to complicate matters." He, DeMarco and Spock tossed a few ideas around, when Uhura hailed him from the bridge.

"Kirk here."

"Captain, something is unfolding on the surface. I've been monitoring Matli communications and there are reports that a Vulcan has escaped from the one of the security compounds."

"We're on our way. DeMarco, you're with us."

xxx

"On audio, Uhura," Kirk said, crowding round his communications officer.

A buzz of white noise resolved itself into intelligible speech. "—port, Squad Three."

"Vulcan fugitive sighted. He's moving toward the river."

DeMarco's face fell, his lips compressed in a firm line. An opportunity to distinguish himself shrivelling up before his eyes. Was nothing simple in this life? Now was probably not the time for amusement at his security chief's expense, but he'd been around the block a few times and the answer to that was a resounding no, not if one served aboard a starship.

"Squads Four and Five deploy to sector one." He winced at the squawk of static that almost drowned out Matli acknowledgements.

Uhura pulled out an earpiece as if it were on fire, and set to work to clean-up the signal. "Sorry, Captain, that's the effect of those jammer things."

"Spock, can you track our missing friend?"

His first officer, already engaged in making that determination, briefly raised his head and shook it in negation. "Suppression fields form an overlapping corridor blanketing the entire area."

Of course they did.

"Captain," said Uhura, urgency in her tone, "we are being hailed from the surface. Audio only. It is Assembly Member Trukoi. He says he must speak to you urgently."

"Trukoi? Put him on, Uhura."

"Ca-Captain," words tumbled out of Trukoi's mouth, "I have been told to ask if this is a secure transmission?"

His eyebrows shot up. "It is. Trukoi, can—?"

"I have the male Vulcan in my custody. Custody! What a strange notion that is. Perhaps I should say protection, but that is probably debatable."

"Trukoi," he said, halting what had all the hallmarks of an impending disquisition in its tracks, "we have heard reports he is on foot near the river."

"One of our own, attired in Vulcan mode of dress to occupy the attention of the first minister's security thugs, while we carted the Vulcan into an ambulance and moved him here. A decoy, Captain, Surely a ruse with which you are familiar?"

"Our sensors are not detecting him, so he must be hidden under the screen of a transporter jamming device."

"I am informed that is likely to be the case."

"Trukoi?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Where exactly is he?"

"Oh, forgive me. We are all at our Central Medical Facility. There is a detention block used by law enforcement, which the security forces of the coalition had appropriated for their own use."

"Lower the field and we shall beam up the Vulcan."

"Er," there followed an embarrassed pause. "How exactly would one go about doing that?"

He let out a silent snort. Academics! "You need some help, Trukoi?"

"Oh yes indeed! Yes, I most certainly do!"

xxx

Kirk predicted ulcers in DeMarco's future. If the man looked peeved on the bridge, by the time he and his security team massed in Transporter Room One, he was visibly grinding his teeth and downright testy.

"Sir," said DeMarco, at parade ground attention, "may I counsel you again that venturing to the surface, when the disposition of Matli forces is unknown is not wise. How may we even know Trukoi is trustworthy?"

Calling your captain a fool, DeMarco? He let it go. The security chief, at least, had the guts to tell truth to power. "Your objections are noted, but you have your orders."

"Aye, sir." Evidently, it was the answer DeMarco had been expecting. Starfleet discipline might impose demands of obedience, but he didn't have to like it. DeMarco clamped his jaw shut on further objections and, when he mounted the transporter platform, took up position beside him, the rest of the security detail forming up behind their senior officers.

He caught Kyle's eye. "Energise."

They materialised in a non-descript corridor, part of the larger medical facility, where the jamming field did not extend. DeMarco deftly manoeuvred his people so that their captain somehow was neither in the vanguard, nor relegated to a vulnerable position at the rear. In the event, DeMarco's caution proved unnecessary for they encountered no Matli on either side of the current political divide and, in short order, located the room Trukoi presently occupied.

DeMarco burst through, phaser at the ready, his team ready to provide covering fire.

"Captain Kirk!" The Assembly Member, a little worse for wear, with a fat lip and a torn cloak, came lumbering toward him, arms outstretched, the sudden move thoroughly alarming a young security man in the process.

"Easy, Adebayor." Adebayor glanced at him and the other members of the landing party, before a second appraisal of Trukoi made him relax. Yep, the man might talk you to death, but other than that…

Rather than the fulsome embrace he'd been expecting, the assembly member settled for shaking his hand enthusiastically. Someone had been researching Terran customs. Trukoi was not alone. Eselleese gave him a tired grin and two more of Trukoi's people also appeared to be present. Two others, wearing the uniforms of the Matli security forces gave him pause for thought, but Trukoi would have probably needed inside help to get into this facility. He was about to instruct DeMarco and his team to secure the room, but the security chief anticipated him, so he turned his attention to Trukoi.

"You alright?" he asked, waving a finger at the livid bruising and swelling around his mouth. "You get into a scrap with Jomadai's forces?"

Trukoi wouldn't meet him in the eye. "Er… no."

"No?"

Trukoi wrung his hands. "Your Vulcan compatriot has been injured and was not amenable to sense. It took all of us to subdue and put him in a cell, where we felt he would be safe." His shoulders slumped. "I am very sorry, Captain. It was necessary for us to stun him."

In illustration, Eselleese held up an ancient style of phaser. It would still get the job done. What had Spock said about a volatile young Vulcan?

Cell? "Where is he?" For the first time he took stock of the quarters he and his people had invaded, decorated in a shade of drab, institutional grey. An observation window hogged almost the entirety of the wall directly opposite the entrance, a prevailing Matli design, affording a magnificent vista of the Matli capital, and the river bisecting it and, closer to home, Matli medical personnel, unaware of their presence and going about their business in the linked, adjoining building. A bank of consoles, with video displays above, took up most of the wall to the left of the entrance. DeMarco occupied himself in examining the readouts on a console, consulting with Adebayor. Judging by the nods and an exchange of confident grins, they had positive news to report on the jammer.

Trukoi waited for his attention to revert to him and then pointed to the right, where a heavy door, controlled by an access code pad, led to another corridor; someone had jammed it open with a shoe wedged into the gap between door and floor. Trukoi set off down the corridor and he followed; Eselleese trotted to catch up with them.

Bright illumination warred with more of the drab palette, but what he saw in the first cell made him forget all about décor and suck in his breath in dismay. The figure that lay upon a wall-mounted bunk was bloodied and bruised, face disfigured with a massive contusion around his left cheek that distorted youthful features. Even in unconsciousness, he nursed his right arm, as if to keep it steady and not jar it. The boy twitched in a manner to suggest he was fighting off the effects of the phaser stun. This post was supposed to be part of a larger medical facility, yet he saw no evidence pointing to the provision of any sort of medical treatment.

Trukoi registered the thunderous expression on his face and babbled. "We did not do that to him, Captain, and only stunned him because we ran out of options and he was endangering both himself and us."

Instead of replying, he gave Trukoi a terse nod, signalling for the cell door to be opened. Eselleese sent a dubious look his way, but trained to obedience did as instructed. Honestly, he was not holding Trukoi and his people responsible, but anger made any response impolitic and he was therefore grateful for DeMarco's interruption.

"Sir, we've located the transporter suppression generator and are ready to disarm it on your orders. We need to hurry up, though."

"Explain."

"We've got the knack of using this post's sensors and they show we're going to have company. There's a squad of Matli security massing at the main entrance of this facility. I doubt they know we're here, but I can't say the same for Assembly Member Trukoi and his staff. The squad are working on cutting their way inside this compound. I'd say judging by their progress they'll be inside within five minutes tops."

Trukoi froze, eyes round. At a guess, the assembly member had never contemplated the need for a plan B.

"Someone seen though your ruse, Assembly Member?" Eselleese drew herself up to her full height and glowered. Easy tiger! He hadn't meant the comment as a reflection on Trukoi or his staff. "Hurry up, indeed. Mr DeMarco, very well, bring the transporter block down. Trukoi, you and your people are going to be _Enterprise_'s guests, until we can place you back on the surface in safety." He flipped open his communicator. "Kirk to _Enterprise_."

"Spock, here. We can now detect you on the surface, Captain."

"Bigger and badder than ever one hopes. There's been a development. We have gate crashers at the party. I want Trukoi and his people beamed aboard first."

"I was about to contact you, sir, and report that one of the Matli cruisers, shadowing _Enterprise_ since we entered standard orbit, just broke off and targeted their weapons upon a point on the surface."

"Target? Casualties?"

"Both unknown, sir."

"Acknowledged and stand by."

"Captain," Trukoi said, a shaky hand gathered his cloak tighter about him, "I'm not sure this is necessary!"

Transporter virgins. "Assembly Member, believe me, it is, it really is. Trust me, it won't hurt a bit." He threw a firm arm around the shoulder of Trukoi, the other around Eselleese and steered them back to the outer room. "_Enterprise_, lock on to all Matli life signs within five metres of this signal and beam up immediately. Call McCoy to the transporter room and beam up the Vulcan prisoner as soon as he arrives. I think his injuries are serious and I think we need to be careful how he is moved."

"Aye, Captain." Kyle's voice.

Moments later The assembly member and his friends dematerialised, Trukoi's mouthed objections, the last thing he saw of them.

"Captain," DeMarco said, so happy, he danced an impromptu jig,

"You need the head, DeMarco?"

"Sorry sir, I always get like this, when I'm excited. I think we've hit the jackpot. We have Matli Security's pass codes and can copy their files, and I am confident my team can hold off the invading Matli long enough for us to complete the task."

He thought about it. Was the delay, was putting his people in danger worth what they might gather?

"How much data?"

DeMarco beamed, his elation reminding him his security chief was still young. "Sorry, sir, I don't think I made myself clear, but it's not just for this facility, but for the entire world-wide security net."

Worth it? He matched grins with DeMarco. Oh, hell, yes! How much might they learn of Jomadai's next step? How much would such a prize tell them of his offworld contacts? He almost joined DeMarco in his dance of joy. There was always the possibility the Matli at the castle ramparts would haul in a new transporter suppression field, but he would order DeMarco and his team back to _Enterprise_ and safety, before that ever became something to worry about.

"Good work, DeMarco. _Enterprise_ security!"

Heads looked up.

"Good work! All of you!"

The security team basked in their captain's approbation. A pity then, they unconsciously took their eyes off the ball, attention directed toward the Matli consoles. He himself had quite forgotten he'd asked for the cell to be opened, and nor had he yet registered turning his back on the occupant was not the brightest of moves, either. To illustrate his dereliction, something gave him a smart whack on the back of the head and he went down, rolling to his side in the process. A mad-eyed Vulcan loomed above him, toting an improvised cudgel, he distantly recognised must be a strut from the bunk upon which the boy had been lying.

His vision went dark at the edges. Before it failed him completely, he made eye contact with his assailant. The new viewpoint angle held some advantages. The planes of the face, the tilt of the jaw, worked loose a connection in a mind turned alarmingly sluggish.

The mad aspect cleared from the boy's eyes; astonishment briefly registered on his face, an astonishment replaced with a correct and proper detachment.

"Hello, Siran."

"Captain Kirk!"

DeMarco levelled his phaser, fired a burst, and Siran fell atop him. After being beaned with a two by four, he felt hardly any of the boy's bulk.

"Commander Spock is going to kill me," DeMarco wailed.

It was the last thing he heard, before he lost the fight with the darkness gathering behind his eyes.

xxx


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Kirk surfaced into the land of the living and tried to lift his head. The pain that resulted instantly dissuaded him. McCoy stuck his face in close, invading his personal space.

"Back with us, I see."

He scowled at his CMO. "Well, that's debatable."

"Head hurting?"

"I'm fine, Bones." He tried to rise into a sitting position and his stomach protested.

"I'll take that as a yes." McCoy placed a hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him down. "Don't even think about it! I've just scraped your brains together and stuffed them back inside your head and you're medicated up the wazoo. You're not going anywhere other than keeping me company for the next few hours. The ship is in Spock's capable hands and we have managed to calm down the Matli assembly member, who nearly had a conniption after his transporter jaunt." McCoy snorted. "I can relate."

"What's happening on the surface?"

"Beats me. I'm always the last to know anything here." Well, that was an out an out untruth.

"Bones!"

McCoy glared. "I am going to call Spock here to report on the latest, because if I don't, you're going to fret and work yourself into a lather. Then, Captain Kirk, suh-hurr, you will rest, and you will delegate to your capable crew."

He did not have the stomach for argument — literally — and shut up. McCoy, used to his intransigence, worried at such ready capitulation and busied himself with another pass of a medical sensor. What he saw was evidently no cause for real alarm because he relaxed.

"Nausea?"

"I'll say." He concentrated on his breathing. "What happened to Siran?"

"The kid that whacked you?"

"Yes."

McCoy moved back and to one side. "Another patron of my establishment."

He battled nausea enough to turn his head. The Leonard McCoy Hostelry had a limited guest list, only he and Siran occupied bio-beds, and the kid lay motionless upon the one furthest away from him.

"He's not doing too well," McCoy said.

He'd guessed as much.

"I've sent word to Gurad and asked them to send us a healer, because the kid doesn't seem able to initiate a healing trance, but even if one arrives promptly, I'm not sure one will be able to help."

What are the extent of his injuries?"

"A really bad concussion that's got me worried, shoulder wound, broken right arm, and he's lost a fair bit of blood, too. Those are the highlights. It hasn't helped that someone, who doesn't know their way around Vulcan physiology, attempted to treat him. His system is flooded with a drug that's making him hallucinate. Can you believe it? DeMarco still wanted to throw him in the brig."

"He has that effect on people."

"And a story for when you're feeling better, I think." McCoy laid something atop his belly and turned to go. "Just in case. I mean it, Jim, once Spock finishes his report, you rest."

He puzzled over what McCoy had left him and he must be out of it, because it took him a moment to realise it was an emesis basin and prayed he wouldn't need it. He despised throwing up. It always made him revert to the emotional state of a small child.

xxx

"Captain? Jim!"

Kirk opened a bleary eye. "Spock?" What the hell had McCoy dosed him with? He'd just nodded off in the space of a few minutes.

"I can return later, if you wish to rest, Captain."

He huffed. "Et tu, Spock?"

An eyebrow rose toward a hairline. He swallowed, and again found the need to concentrate on his breathing. This was enough for Spock, who rose to leave.

"I'm alright. Please stay. I apologise for my grumpiness, but you haven't had to put up with McCoy's fussing. The doctor is becoming an old lady in his dotage."

"I heard that!"

Spock ignored cheesy human levity and eyed him with concern. "It was a serious injury, Jim."

"And my own damn fault. How's DeMarco by the way?"

"Suffering a severe case of professional embarrassment."

"Thought he might. I don't know why, though. I was the one who ordered Siran's cell opened, and then turned my back on the occupant." His friend's curiosity was engaged at his use of Siran's given name, his gaze flicking toward the other occupied bio-bed, yet he would never pry. "That was my own stupid error of judgement, not DeMarco's." He snorted, when Spock offered no contradiction, merely maintained a politic silence. "I heard DeMarco almost threw Siran into the brig?"

"Indeed. At first, I confess I was of a similar mind. Whatever our intentions, it became moot as soon as Doctor McCoy saw the boy's injuries."

"McCoy says he has a serious concussion and is out of his mind on some Matli quack remedy, so I'll give him a break."

"Captain, do you recall I said when we recovered the male Vulcan, we would know then whether his bondmate survived?"

"I do."

"Actions speak louder than words. I interpret his bellicosity as a demonstration of his desire to get to his bondmate and protect her."

And to think all that time ago, he'd worried at how Siran's wedding would progress. "She's alive?"

"As of a few hours ago, I would certainly think so. Currently, we are combing the security files Mr DeMarco recovered at considerable danger to himself."

"Trying to redeem himself by putting his own skin at risk?" A memory surfaced of DeMarco's unhappiness at his captain coming along for the ride.

Spock stared.

"Yeah, that's not very fair. Ignore me, I'm still smarting from my own stupidity. Besides, it is the sort of thing I would do."

"Yes," Spock agreed, again a little too readily for his battered pride. "In fact, I sanctioned the exercise. The data we have mined made it a move worth the risk."

"Oh?" Concussion and outraged digestion notwithstanding, he sat up straighter.

"Jim, we have concrete information on the location of the base of First Minister Jomadai's offworld allies.

xxx

Six hours later, after a brief conversations with _Farragut_'s and _Apollo_'s captains for an update on what exactly they'd found at the co-ordinates Spock relayed hours earlier, Kirk returned to the bridge. McCoy hadn't wanted to let him go, but his head had responded to treatment, though his nausea remained; he had no patience for lingering in sickbay, when he had work to do.

Spock rose out of the command chair at his arrival and stationed himself at his side.

"Report, Mr Spock."

Dark eyes examined him, but reassured by what he saw, Spock launched into a summation of current developments on Matli. Trukoi's decoy was still paying off in spades, with Jomadai's people turning riverside warehouses upside down in their search for their Vulcan quarry; apparently they had no idea Trukoi had moved Siran to the security facility and had attacked the place because they believed Trukoi had attempted to hide there from the first minister's thugs. The jury was still out on what Jomadai's forces made of Trukoi's absence, but it wouldn't take much for the penny to fall and the realisation it wasn't bad intel but _Enterprise's_ involvement.

"Does Jomadai, and his people, know we have their codes?"

"It would appear not. The newly evolving political realignment on Matli has thrown the first minister and his supporters into disarray.

"Ha!"

"Assembly Member Trukoi and his staff remain aboard _Enterprise_."

"Still?"

"We identified the target the Matli ship struck."

"I'm not going to like your answer, am I?"

"As I suspect you may have inferred it was Assembly Member Trukoi's house. However, he anticipated such a reprisal and had abandoned the property. The situation on the surface remains an ever volatile one and, at the moment, I am at a loss to determine where might be safe for him."

"Alright, we'll cross that bridge when we need to. Any news on our remaining lost lamb."

"Nothing certain. I do believe we may have a likely location for her, although again transporter suppression fields do not allow for sensors to offer a confirmation. I am concerned that as Jomadai's fortunes sink, so rises her level of jeopardy. Trukoi and Iskar have both commented on his vindictive streak."

"Yes," the same concern worried him. He swivelled his seat around. "Lieutenant Uhura, my compliments to Assembly Member Trukoi and ask him if he would join me on the bridge.

"How is Siran?" Spock asked.

"McCoy says he is fading fast. Any sign of that healer?"

"Gurad assures me one has been despatched in a ship capable of warp eight."

So breaking orbit to rendezvous with the incoming vessel wouldn't reap much of a benefit, not when the developing situation on the surface also demanded _Enterprise_'s attention.

The turbo-lift decanted both Trukoi and Eselleese, the latter appointed to the task of wrangling her boss. Just as well, he was the sort to get lost.

"Your ship is a wonder, Captain," said the Assembly Member.

"Thank you," he said. A quick smile and then down to business. "Trukoi, I have a favour to ask."

"Name it."

I want you to contact Arok Jomadai and arrange for me to meet with him to talk prisoner release."

xxx

On three Kirk and his fiver person security team burst through the entrance.

First Minister Jomadai and another Matli, probably a lieutenant, rather than a bodyguard, reached for the holstered weapons at their side, before they registered the phasers _Enterprise_'s crew trained upon their persons and froze.

"Wise move," he said, "hands above heads, if you please, or take a phaser hit." He waved two of his security people, Masekela and Riggins, forward to confiscate the nasty projectile things the Matli relied upon as personal sidearms.

Jomadai goggled at them. "How…?"

"How did I know where to find you? You were kind enough to take my call, First Minister. Took mere seconds for _Enterprise_'s communications officer to pick her way through the maze of that security wall you'd created and find your location. She's very efficient." Now that any threat from the first minister and his man had been neutralised, he allowed himself to examine his surroundings, taken aback by the size of the space in what he had been informed was a private residence. Enormous. City Hall meets Cistine Chapel. Delusions of grandeur, or what? A banqueting table, big enough to easily seat a small army, took up a sizable proportion of the space and an untouched meal, placed on on one end, awaited the first minister.

Masekela met his eye and gave him a discreet shake of the head. Damn. The first minister and his flunky carried only weapons on their person. Not to be stymied and thoroughly briefed by DeMarco, Masekela unshouldered a tricorder and commenced a scan of the room.

"What do you want, Kirk?"

He ignored the first minister's question. "My, this is a big place, but I bet it gets a little draughty on long winter's nights. Yes, big place. Not very secure though, even if some of your thugs have ever so hard jaws." He made a big deal of nursing sore knuckles. "Relying on those borrowed transporter jammers a little too much, yes?"

Jomadai took the hint, put two and two together, and his throat bobbed once, twice, thrice. If the jammers were down, his compound must now lie at the mercy of Starfleet's pride and joy. _Enterprise_ might transport the first minister to anywhere her captain desired, including delivering him into the hands of Trukoi, now very much back on the surface, and Trukoi's friends.

"What do you want here? These are affairs that concern our world; you and your Federation have no business interfering." Jomadai talked a good game, but the bravado fell a little flat. Trukoi reported the first minister's supporters jumping ship. All unappealing intelligence to the first minister, no doubt. Rivers in Egypt and so on. Nevertheless, the imprint of desperation and fear, born of the unhappy truth that only failure and ignominy awaited him, and but mere hours away at that, registered on his face.

"Oh, we shall be on our way soon. Once you release your Vulcan guest into my care."

Jomadai scoffed. "The Vulcans have greatly offended me and all of Matli." Jomadai glanced toward the midpoint of the ginormous table and his gaze immediately veered away.

Hello.

"Masekela."

"Sir?"

"Concentrate your scan on that table." He pointed. "Start about there."

"Aye, sir."

"No, that big offence thing is a total crock. You have invoked a tradition, so old it hasn't been practiced in fifty generations. Now I know, and I suspect you know, Vulcans mostly mate for life, so your little design could have no purpose other than to perform the office of provocation, which it has done marvellously for thus am I here." He fashioned an elaborate bow.

"You would threaten us. We are not afraid of the firepower of your starship, Kirk."

"Really? Well, that's just plain silly."

Jomadai's lieutenant stirred, and security tensed, expecting trouble. Yet the man only moved his weight from one foot to the other. However small the movement, he was attempting to edge away from Jomadai.

"Silly, but not the way we do business in Starfleet or the Federation. Now you on the other hand. Oh, dear, where does one start? You, sir, might have had something good going for you. People respond to leaders with a vision. What was the platform on which you were elected? A strong, self-reliant Matli. A Matli with the vision to find new trading partners and acquire new technologies to secure a prosperous future for your world."

"You have the gall to criticise me for those aims."

"For that? No. I reserve my scorn for the manner in which you were prepared to mortgage Matli up to the hilt to pay for Gammenori technology and for how you dealt with fellow Matli, who had the colossal nerve to question matters, which in most instances appears to have won them either a disappearance or a violent end. Helpful having those Gammenori weapons to hand, eh? So, the only Matli you left standing were those too frightened for themselves, or for the safety of their families. Going after the children," he tsked, wagged his finger. "always a tactic bound to bite you in the ass in the long run."

More restless fidgeting from the lieutenant.

"The trouble with despots is that no one dares speak truth to power, no one dares to point out when you have overplayed your hand. You assumed fellow Matli would respond favourably to your engineered outrage with the Vulcans, but they saw through a scheme that only the immature and the foolish gave any credence to."

"The Vulcans put five of my people in the hospital."

"If I were married and someone came to abduct my wife, I dare say I would be a little peeved, too. Bet you didn't count on Vulcans finding their own way of getting even. How many ships have the Orions seized now? Ten? Twelve? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was the Gammenori who suggested you pick a fight with Vulcan?"

A filthy look was his only response.

Undaunted, he continued, "I'll take that as a 'yes'. This must be painful to absorb, but your role in all of this, First Minister, is that of a distraction. Your Gammenori friends wanted to start a proxy war. Well, not much of a war, but a conflict sufficient to afford the Gammenori enough time to make an orderly removal from this sector of space. I understand they've been working on setting up new supply chains, establishing new trading routes, elsewhere — tell me if any of this strikes a chord — get the Federation to concentrate on Matli, while your Gammenori friends use all the fun and games for their own advantage."

"Lies!"

"Spoken with your Gammenori contacts lately, have you?"

Silence.

"The Federation suspected for some time the Gammenori preyed on our shipping, but we have never been able to prove it. Starfleet is good, but we cannot be everywhere, nor had we been able to find the Gammenori staging post we suspected was in this sector. That changed as of a few hours ago. My fellow captains found Federation citizens the Gammenori had pressed into servitude, a matter of which we take a dim view. So, if you were hoping your friends might help you out, they've kind of got their hands full at the moment."

Jomadai chose that moment to launch himself at him, a move security had been anticipating. Masekela neatly tripped the enraged first minister, before he hauled him back to his feet, the Matli's desire for blood curbed with the application of a restraining hold.

The first minister struggled, until Masekela applied a little circumspect pressure. "At least the Gammenori shared their technology with us. Something your Federation would never do."

"Exactly how much were they extracting, no let's get this right, how much were they extorting from you for these benefits?"

Another sullen silence, followed by more bluster. He tuned out Jomadai, interested to see what the man's lieutenant made of this. Some of this was plainly news, if the expression of one who'd caught a whiff of something far more malodorous than three day old boiled cabbage was any indicator. Jomadai appeared hardly aware of his subordinate's presence; the subordinate, with Jomadai's back presented to him, had dropped the blank, reserved expression and his mouth was a tight line, his face slightly pink.

"That is no concern of yours!" Jomadai yelled.

Masekela gave a table pillar a whack and a panel opened. Jomadai burst forward and made two steps before this time Security pulled out a seat and made him sit.

"Well done, Masekela. Let's see what we've got, shall we? Ah, papers, an awful lot of Matli currency. Oh, here we go." He pulled out the small device, which looked like nothing other than a metallic lollipop and which had been their objective since they'd gate-crashed the first minister's party. As if it were offering a commentary on the situation, his communicator chirped. "Kirk, here."

"Spock, Captain. I thought you would like to know Ensign Gretel has reported fully fit for duty and we may now beam you up at your convenience."

He allowed a wry grin, eyeing the device in his hand. Spock had beaten him to it. "Very timely, Mr Spock. Stand by, _Enterprise_."

"I will never release the Vulcan bitch to you. I will execute her first, Kirk."

"Really? I imagine a little like…" he needed a closer inspection. "Ah, yes." The 'lollipop' might rotate. He gave it a savage turn and the device squealed like a pig as it broadcasted a signal.

Jomadai froze in his seat, his eyes widening; he covered the reaction by glancing down at his boots, but the smirk was the give away.

"Hey!" He snapped his fingers and made a bid to out-smirk the first minister, while wagging a finger at him. "Hey, now I know what you're thinking. Oh, you naughty dictator, you." He laughed. "Just a heads-up, but we have recovered the remaining member of the Vulcan diplomatic delegation and my first officer reports she is safe and well. The thing about neuro-lytic restraints is that a well appointed starship has absolutely no problems removing them from a subject without any nasty surprises. Although, I have to say the addition of a poison sac set up for a remote trigger, "and he brandished the device in his hands, "elevated diabolical to a whole new level."

Jomadai spat out something unintelligible.

"In case I was too oblique earlier: you have played the game, sir, and you have lost. Now it strikes me you can either figure out a way to make a deal with the incoming admin—"

"Never!"

"Figure out a way to make a deal with the new administration, or you can offer your services to the Federation. We require an intermediary with the Gammenori and you might be what we need. Either way, I'm not too bothered what you choose. I imagine one of your subordinates will serve in a pinch."

The first minister uttered another curse.

"Well, whatever. I'd watch your back if I were you. _Enterprise_, six to beam up."

xxx


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Kirk and the landing party materialised on the transporter pad to be greeted by Spock.

"Casualties on DeMarco's team, Spock?"

"DeMarco and Adebayor are in sickbay."

His face fell and the security team's elation at a successful exercise in distracting Jomadai also took a hit.

"Doctor McCoy would take it amiss I should have the temerity to comment on what is very much his sphere of expertise, but I do not believe their injuries are serious."

He dismissed the security team, with compliments for their work. They dawdled, ears pricked up for any news on their counterparts. Like them he was curious, unlike them he had the luxury of seeing for himself and he steered a course for McCoy's domain, Spock fell into step.

"Where is the girl?"

"In sickbay with her bondmate. The Vulcan healer arrived exactly twenty-two minutes ago and she is also with them. The Matli ships, which had been keeping station on _Enterprise_ have withdrawn; it would appear a change of administration is gathering pace as we speak."

"I wouldn't be surprised if Jomadai signals us for aid within the hour. I planted the seed of him being our Gammenori intermediary and I have a feeling it will take root, once he's staring at the wrong end of a much anticipated comeuppance." Trukoi's tales, of intimidation and assassinations to rid the field of those who would oppose the first minister, made sympathising with the man an uphill struggle.

"The Matli will have objections."

"Yes, but if the Gammenori give up some of the Matli disappeared, I'm confidant they'll come round. Anyway, it's not as if Jomadai will escape justice; I'd merely prefer to see it meted out by cooler heads and a proper judicious process."

They arrived at sickbay to find Nurse Chapel treating the two security men in McCoy's outer office. "We're giving our Vulcan guests a little privacy, sir," she said. The outer office was brightly lit, the rest of sickbay less so.

He nodded, indulged his nosiness in allowing his eyes to stray to the bio-bed Siran occupied, but his view was obstructed by two Vulcan females, one robed in Vulcan attire, the other much, much younger wearing Matli clothing.

Adebayor, gulped at the arrival of both his captain and first officer. He blushed scarlet to the roots of his hair. "Sorry, sir, I messed up real bad. I slipped and sprained my ankle, sir."

A bark of laughter escaped DeMarco. "Good thing, too, or that Matli goon would not have have tripped over you and run me through with that ornamental spear instead."

"Your team secured your objective. That's good enough for me, Adebayor." A resistant Adebayor still wished to throw himself on his sword. "Take the compliment in the spirit it was intended, Ensign."

"Aye, Captain."

In contrast there was nothing reticent about DeMarco, who sported an ear to ear, cat got the canary grin, only faintly marred by the enormous black eye developing on the right side of his face.

"Forgot to duck?"

"Something like that, sir. Mission went like clockwork, Captain. We infiltrated the site of their power generator, knocking that out brought the transporter block down, and the ship beamed up the captive within seconds." DeMarco's mood turned serious. "Not a moment too soon, sir. Looks like they were getting ready to dispose of their prisoner's remains. It seems they were just waiting for the deed."

Vindictive alright. What final shred of empathy he might have had for Jomadai withered and died

"Well done, you and your team, Lieutenant Commander."

"Thank you, sir."

"Get some sleep, both of you, and I shall be pleased to receive your formal report by 1400 hours tomorrow, DeMarco."

"Aye, sir."

Chapel finished her work on her two charges and they promptly scarpered. Chapel retreated to put away the tools of her trade, and that left only Spock to witness his inquisitiveness. Siran's bondmate had her back to him, listening attentively to what the healer had to say, head tilted to one side denoting engagement of her full attention. He was at a loss to understand what they intended, until Spock played interpretor.

"The healer will endeavour to establish a mind-meld with Siran's bondmate and then Siran himself; in his abused state, I doubt he would trust anyone other than her, but she is a little young, a little inexperienced to initiate a healing trance in another."

The figure on the bed stirred and by some miracle opened his eyes. "T'Kar? You are safe?"

She took the seat someone had left at the bedside and leaned over him to brush his hair tenderly away from his banged up face, fingers seeking out familiar psi points. "And in health, husband. Take my strength, feel my thoughts." Gentle, soothing words that morphed into the familiar litany of someone establishing a mind-meld.

This? This was the termagant Tay had feared for his brother? More evidence of how a terror of pon farr could summon up non-existent horrors?

Spock stared at the read-outs above the bio-bed. An eyebrow beginning a precipitous climb toward his bangs.

Even he, though with the aid of Siran's bio-signs laid out for him, could surmise what had just happened and couldn't help the smirk that formed on his lips. "She just made you eat your words, didn't she?"

"Indeed, Siran's life signs are beginning to stabilise. He is in a healing trance. I confess I am quite impressed."

If he were to bet, the healer, a person of mature years and presumably one who'd seen it all in her time, similarly shared their surprise. She swept her gaze over the readouts on the bio-bed, but drew out her own more familiar hand scanner from a pocket inside her robe and ran that over Siran's form; pleased enough at the results that she closed the device with a clack of finality.

"My work, such as it is, is done," she said to McCoy, who had withdrawn to a quiet corner of sickbay to allow his guests space. "You may call for my assistance, when you are ready to rouse the patient."

xxx

The delegation assembled in rec room one in readiness for departure as soon as _Enterprise_ entered standard orbit around Vulcan, and the thing that had been bugging Kirk, since they broke orbit at Matli would be contained no longer.

"Spock?" Aware of Vulcan acuity of hearing, he spoke in a tone barely above a murmur. "May I ask you something delicate as my friend and not as my first officer?"

Spock's posture stiffened and he gave him a wary eye. "Sir?"

Okaay, that went well. Maybe it was because he had been watching Siran and T'Kar, and Spock thought he was going to touch upon the the 'p' word. Well, the pair and their interaction did intrigue him. They seemed to intuit their youth, their junior status, would insulate them from the injury to careers and standing about to be visited upon their elders. They formed a sharp contrast to the rest of the delegation, who, Vulcan control notwithstanding, presented a deflated and dejected aura.

"We agree that the delegation's mission to Matli was a calamitous failure?" he asked.

A wrinkle appeared between Spock's brow. Not the question he'd anticipated. "An unfortunate but fair assessment."

"So, I have been wondering about T'Pau and just how ruthless she might be."

Spock stilled and carefully placed his hands behind his back. "Never underestimate her, Jim."

His gaze searched out Iskar, sitting in magnificent isolation from any other member of his team, and he felt sorry for him. Not much fun having your ass handed to you. "You know I marvelled at how fast the Orions arranged for the seizure of Matli ships, until it occurred to me that this was something T'Pau already had primed and ready to roll, but she wanted it to appear to be at my instigation. She could have set the ball rolling earlier and given Iskar some much needed relief, except she really had no intention of cutting him any breaks, did she?"

Spock plucked at his elbow and steered them until they were as far from the delegation as the confines of the rec room would allow. Even then, Spock copied his near murmur. "I have no proof, but it would not surprise me if T'Pau manoeuvred behind the scenes for Iskar to be selected. His family is associated with the isolationist movement on Vulcan, although his chosen field of endeavour would make one question whether he supports their aims."

"His blindness to nuance and subtext served T'Pau very well, I should imagine." Offering the observation that he thought Iskar a little thick was probably too on the nose. "So, tell me, you ever think the objectives of the mission were a little ridiculous?"

The wrinkle between Spock's eyes deepened. "Ridiculous?"

"They were ostensibly designed to assuage Matli fears of Vulcan expansion in this sector as Gurad continues to prosper, and offered the lure of new trading opportunities with Federation worlds, with protection of said new trade by Starfleet thrown in for good measure."

Spock said nothing, but he had his close attention.

"It's only when one turns the whole farrago of nonsense on its head, that any sort of clear picture emerges. One, rather than assuaging Matli fears, the actual design of the mission was to convey a threat — veiled, but a threat nonetheless — in pointing up Gurad's expansion in this sector was here to stay and that the Matli should get used to the idea, because Gurad possessed the capacity to take care of itself. Two, the last thing the Matli wanted was any sort of closer association with the Federation or any political and cultural hegemony that outlaws the trade in sentient beings, not when the Matli's bosom pals were the Gammenori, and it must have worried the Matli that trade would be subject to interference. Three," he huffed, disturbingly almost one with Admiral Komack's disgruntlement in being drawn in to perform the manipulations of others, "well, bringing Starfleet into the equation was somewhat over egging the pudding, in my opinion. Even if it did serve to back the Matli into a corner, with predictable results."

"Yes," Spock said with a fine economy of words, then seeing that hardly satisfied, continued, "All through T'Pau's life people have underestimated her; she is advanced in years, but yet she remains in authority, while those who opposed her have—"

"—long since bitten the dust."

"If you will. She is every inch the Machiavelli you are beginning to suspect her to be. Lately, it is the isolationists in Vulcan society who have attempted to gain the upper hand, but T'Pau always out-manoeuvres her adversaries, none of whom are a match for the level of ruthlessness she is prepared to employ."

Including sending someone into a situation without a firm grasp of the political actualités, where innocents were also involved? He really didn't want to think ill of the old trout, who had engaged his good will after she came to bat for he and Spock in the aftermath of Spock's wedding, but his gaze again strayed to Siran and T'Kar, engaged in conversation with Uhura, and he knew he was being foolish. Sure enough in the wake of this debacle, the pressure was off T'Pau, who wasted no time in pursuing her advantage.

Spock divined his thoughts. "One has only to invoke the needs of the many, outweighs the good of the few. It is a creed, like many, open to abuse."

I'll say. He kept the thought to himself.

"Captain, may we change the subject? I have a profound distaste for politics."

Spock was in luck. A change of subject presented itself in the form of Siran on an approach vector.

"Captain Kirk," Siran said. "I offer my apologies for the injuries I caused to your person."

Interesting, somewhere along the line, someone had imparted a little human politesse. "After Jomadai's goons went to work on you, an apology is hardly required."

"Perhaps, but my actions were all the more egregious, since they are apparently becoming an unfortunate habit."

At that last bit, he stared, while Spock pricked up his ears curious for more. A stab at humour? Yep, the gleam in the eye gave the game away.

"I am glad to see you are a lot healthier than when we picked you up."

"For which I offer my thanks for you and your crew's efforts in rescuing my wife and I."

"_Enterprise_," Spock said, "was assigned to render all aid and assistance. The results were the natural and logical outcomes of our assignment. One does not thank logic."

"Indeed, Elder. I am, however, aware other races do not share our reliance on logic. Learning the customs and etiquette of other species is surely helpful to any who wish to pursue a diplomatic career."

"That seems eminently logical to me, Mr Spock." Why pass up a perfectly good opportunity to tease?

Spock ignored the dig and let his curiosity have its way. "You have a prior acquaintance with Captain Kirk?"

"I met him twelve point two months ago, Elder."

"We were both on a passenger vessel at the same time. The company were kind enough to let me hitch a ride back to _Enterprise_."

"The Captain secured passage for myself and my companions to Vulcan, where I had urgent business to address," said Siran, which gave Spock pause at the realisation of straying too close to an unfortunate topic.

"I see your urgent business over there talking to Uhura."

"Yes," Siran said, surprising him in being so matter of fact, "may I present to you she who is my wife."

"I should be honoured." Honour it was. He had received some sense of how proprietary Vulcan males could be around their mates from meeting Sarek. Age probably had no bearing on that instinct.

Hardly had the comment escaped Siran's lips, than some bondmate sleight of mind drew T'Kar to their sides.

"Captain Kirk, Commander Spock, allow me to present my colleague, T'Kar." Siran demonstrated his youth by unconsciously puffing out his chest. "And my wife."

He resisted a snort of amusement. Yeah, as if anyone were in any doubt.

T'Kar gave her husband a look, more faintly chiding than outright censuring. She inclined her head, "Captain."

"T'Kar," he said, returning the courtesy in the same vein. Lucky boy! Bright, intelligent eyes, neat cap of dark hair, a rather pretty, petite woman. Despite her spouse's immature display of pride in her — like showing off a new puppy — she seemed unconscious of her appearance and certainly did nothing to draw attention to herself. Like the rest of the delegation, she wore simple _Enterprise_ issue coveralls, the delegation's luggage having been left far behind on Matli. The only variance of that attire, a brightly coloured scarf or shawl thing, he would bet was a loan from Uhura. The shawl offered a clue she was perhaps having difficulty in adjusting to _Enterprise_'s ambient temperature and provided yet another indication of the pair's youth.

"I am fortunate." Siran offered T'Kar the finger touch, the customary greeting between spouses.

Well, weren't they the sweetest.

If he thought Spock would disapprove of the display, that was not the case. Unlike the pair's associates in the delegation. Perhaps Siran's immaturity, the prospect of what he might say to an outsider alarmed them, for they called the pair over to attend their elders in a peremptory manner. Something about their manner suggested a parent remonstrating with a child, which reminded him.

"You know, Spock, while we're at Vulcan, if you wished for a little shore leave to visit your parents, I am sure we could get along without you just fine for a few days."

"That will not be necessary, sir."

He expected more of an explanation, that Spock's parents were offworld, perhaps. Nothing. A glance at Spock showed his gaze remained locked upon Siran and T'Kar.

"To be wed at such a premature age." Was that a shiver? Dread? Something, a flicker of empathy and compassion, surfaced behind Spock's eyes, a reckoning of what Siran would have had to endure before coming out the other side, perhaps, mingling with his own painful recollections.

"Well, they seem to be doing well enough now." T'Kar's shawl slid off a shoulder; Siran, mid conversation, tucked it back in place. "A wise man once said: gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love."

An exasperated Spock searched his memory, dark shadows retreating. "Einstein. Hardly appropriate in this context, Captain."

No, but it brought you back from wherever you just went. "Uhura's right. They do make a cute couple. Don't you think?" En garde, o' pal of mine.

Spock summoned a bland equanimity. "Vulcans are not capable of being cute, sir.

He studied the couple, tilted his head. "Oh, I don't know, Mr Spock. One might not think 'cute' and 'Vulcan' a natural pairing, but…

The bland expression morphed into a haughty, lofted eyebrow.

"I bet your mother would say you were cute as a baby. I bet she has the pictures to prove it."

From haughty to withering. "My mother is human."

"And would know cute when she saw it. Ergo..."

Spock's heart wasn't in the match. "Siran and his bondmate have a felicitous paring. Siran's parents chose well."

Unlike Spock's, whose choice almost got a two birds with one stone payoff.

"Siran says you previously assisted him?" Spock asked.

"Yes." He flashed him a grin. "Jealous?"

"Curious."

"It's a story about a Vulcan, who wasn't quite himself and attempted to steal a ship to return to Vulcan in a hurry."

"Ah, one of those stories."

"If you have the time, or interest, I'll fill you in on what little there is to tell over chess and a nightcap in my quarters. Say twenty-two hundred hours."

Fair warning of the thing that dare not say its name, but Spock's curiosity had been piqued. Curiosity warred with a subject Vulcans usually found excruciating.

Curiosity won.

"I look forward to it, Jim."

**The End**

Thank you for reading and now to be utterly shameless … if you enjoyed this piece, or even if you thought it was awful, may I beg for some feedback. There's only so much that the hit counts on my story stats page can tell me and, for all I know, people are taking one look and clicking that back button straight out of dodge.

Even negative feedback on stuff you think doesn't work would be useful and very much appreciated.


End file.
